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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Denise Mieses, Chairperson of DC37 Local 372 and SAPS, on Funding for Substance Abuse Prevention and Intervention Specialists
4:42:58
ยท
3 min
Denise Mieses, representing DC37 Local 372, testified to request $6 million in city funding to match state funding for the Substance Abuse Prevention and Intervention Specialists (SAPS) program in New York City schools. She emphasized the program's importance in supporting students and addressing substance abuse issues.
- Mieses shared her personal experience as a beneficiary of the SAPS program and now as a SAPS counselor.
- She highlighted the unique role of SAPS in building relationships with students and addressing root causes of issues.
- Mieses stressed the need for more SAPS counselors, citing the current ratio of 236 SAPS serving 912,000 students as insufficient.
Denise Mieses
4:42:58
hello?
4:42:59
Much better.
4:43:00
Good afternoon chair Lee, to the distinguished members of the committee.
4:43:03
I'm Denise Mieses, chairperson of Local three seventy two sorry, SAPS chairperson of Local three seventy two and current SAPS.
4:43:12
This is my I'm a SAPS now for nine and a half years with the Department of Education.
4:43:16
I am here representing 236 SAPS, substance abuse prevention and intervention specialists, with the request that the City Of New York fund the SAPS program through a dollar for dollar match of $6,000,000 with the state legislature.
4:43:31
The SAPPAS program has been around since 1971.
4:43:35
From 1995 to 1999, I myself was a SAPPAS kid.
4:43:38
It is what kept me in school.
4:43:40
I attribute it as a major factor to not only graduating high school, but graduating high school on time.
4:43:47
Right?
4:43:47
What kept me going to my SAPS counselor was a relationship she was able to build not just with me, but with my family.
4:43:53
And now, as the universe would have it, I get to be that gap between my students and the resources that they need.
4:44:01
Because we are the only people in the school that have these unique relationships with our students.
4:44:06
Our students are not scared to come and talk to us.
4:44:09
We have nothing to do with discipline.
4:44:10
We don't scold them for cutting a class.
4:44:14
We do the opposite.
4:44:15
Right?
4:44:15
We don't want them to cut class.
4:44:17
We don't want them to do drugs.
4:44:18
And, yes, that's a symptom, but our job, our responsibility, is to kind of focus on the root of why that symptom is happening.
4:44:25
Right?
4:44:26
And the SAPS program gives us the opportunity to help them with that.
4:44:31
We know that different kinds of stressors are interconnected.
4:44:34
What happens at home, what happens in personal relationships, in romantic relationships, have a big factor in how or if our students are able to focus and concentrate in class.
4:44:46
Right?
4:44:47
And so the programs, the social emotional learning programs that we offer them give them the opportunity to learn life skills, to learn things like goal setting, right, to understand what it is to say no, it's okay, Refusal skills.
Lynn Schulman
4:45:03
Summarize the rest of it and then you can submit the test results.
Denise Mieses
4:45:07
So to add insult to injury, the explosion of the illicit cannabis shops near city schools are ones that we struggle with day in and day out.
4:45:16
I know for myself, there are three around my high school, and all of them know me because I'm in there every morning trying to make sure that, you know, our students aren't in there and so that the owners and the people at the counter understand that I got my eye on you and so does everybody else.
4:45:30
Right?
4:45:31
So currently, there are 236 SAPAs servicing nine hundred and nine hundred and twelve thousand public school students, and that's simply not enough.
4:45:41
The money that we're asking to to meet is to allow for the hiring of at least 25 new full time SAPAs to not only be in schools but on campuses, and different campuses house up to five different schools.
4:45:55
Right?
4:45:56
Instead of splitting between four different campuses, we're asking that each school have their own so that we're able to provide them with the services that not only the students, but that their families are in need of.