Mental Health

Goal: Enhance school and community mental health services.

The first step to enhancing school and community mental health services will be to hire a School Community Mental Health Coordinator. This new position is responsible for conducting a mental health assessment at SPS. Through a variety of community and SPS staff positions; nurses, psychologists, drug and alcohol intervention specialists, and counselors, mental health screening, assessment, intervention, and referrals are provided to SPS students. In addition to the services provided in schools, many students receive mental health treatment via private or community mental health providers. There is no staff position to coordinate these functions or to ensure effective relationships with community mental health providers. The Community Mental Health Coordinator will promote agency-school linkages by coordinating referrals, identifying and reducing treatment barriers, and advocating for culturally appropriate mental health care for all students and their families.

The Student Assessment, Violence, Evaluation, and Management Program (SAVEM) provides mental health intervention and case management for SPS students making suicidal or homicidal threats. The program has been successful at keeping students in their school of origin while addressing issues of harm to self or others. Two additional SAVEM case managers will be hired to further these efforts. This will allow the SAVEM program to strengthen the mental health component of the project and to better coordinate with bilingual families of children involved in the program.

In contrast to middle and high school guidance counselors, elementary counselors provide individual and group mental health and behavior intervention counseling and referrals for students. Through the Safe Schools/Healthy Students grant, 5 additional elementary counselors will be hired to serve 9 elementary schools. One of the new counselors will have expertise in working with students exhibiting sexually aggressive behavior. This person will consult with elementary schools that do not have a counselor on staff in developing behavior plans for sexually aggressive youth and in responding to crisis situations.