Tonight, student mental health advocates in Delaware schools were recognized for their work.<\/p>\n
The Delaware Department of Education’s Behavioral Health Professional of the Year Awards Dinner recognized school counselors, social workers, licensed clinical social workers, psychologists and school nurses from nearly 20 schools in Delaware.<\/p>\n
Each nominee representing a school district or charter school received a $2,000 award from their respective school district or charter school in recognition of their commitment to students.<\/p>\n
This year’s 2026 Delaware Behavioral Health Professional of the Year recipient is Taylor Ritchie, a school counselor in the Woodbridge School District.<\/p>\n
As this year’s winner, Ritchie received a total of $5,000 from the state and district.<\/p>\n
The Woodbridge School District will also receive $5,000 to support Ritchie’s students.<\/p>\n
She said she is honored to be recognized for her work in the Woodbridge School District, as she graduated from the district while she was a student. <\/p>\n
Ritchie also gave a message to fellow candidates.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour work is meaningful and it takes a village to support our students and families,\u201d Ritchie said. \u201cThe connections you make are Case<\/em> And the impact you have on each child will last a lifetime. \u201d<\/p>\n Last year, Red Clay Unified School District social worker Jaclyn Durant was named Behavioral Health Professional of the Year.<\/p>\n The 2026 District and Charter Behavioral Health Professionals of the Year are:<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/em>Get WDEL’s top stories sent straight to your email address. Click here to sign up for the afternoon edition of WDEL.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n You’ll also receive breaking news notifications sent directly to your mobile device.<\/strong><\/em> Click here to download the WDEL app. This allows you to easily access your WDEL streams on the go.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Taylor #Richey #named #Behavioral #Health #Pro #DDOE #years<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tonight, student mental health advocates in Delaware schools were recognized for their work. The Delaware Department of Education’s Behavioral Health Professional of the Year Awards Dinner recognized school counselors, social workers, licensed clinical social workers, psychologists and school nurses from nearly 20 schools in Delaware. Each nominee representing a school district or charter school received … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[929,920,923,931,574,173,174,922,477,928,930,918,924,927,919,921,925,926,559],"class_list":["post-556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-behavioral","tag-behavioral-science","tag-cognition","tag-ddoe","tag-education","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-hindrance","tag-mental-health","tag-named","tag-pro","tag-psychology","tag-psychology-concepts","tag-richey","tag-school-counseling","tag-social-issues","tag-social-policy","tag-taylor","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n