As we enter October, I want to highlight our mental health service delivery model at ASCEND K-8, one of our Education for Change charter partner schools in Oakland, California. Our clinical team at ASCEND is in the exciting process of expanding their reach by providing short term therapy for students that the school has historically struggled to serve. These are students who do not meet the strict eligibility criteria of our two primary funders: MediCal and Special Education (Educationally Related Mental Health Services, also referred to as ERMHS). This shift in service was inspired by the shared vision of Principal Lindzey Tassano and our clinical team who are all committed to increasing equity and accessibility of services for all students and families. When describing the vision for creating this service and the clinical team’s contributions, Principal Tassano shared:
This current level of collaboration reflects All-In’s long history with ASCEND, where we have partnered over the last several years to build out a coordinated system of tiered academic, behavioral and social emotional supports. ASCEND was part of a pilot set of schools that integrated the Unconditional Education Coach role, which provided the opportunity to implement clear structures for assessing and improving schoolwide culture and climate year over year. Intentional capacity building efforts have allowed ASCEND to take on the special education, behavioral and culture and climate services in-house, while Seneca continues to partner to provide clinical supports via county mental health and special education contracts. Our current Seneca team consists of three full-time clinicians who strive to provide a broad array of tiered social emotional supports, which, on top of traditional individual and family therapy, includes: regularly contributing to structured collaboration time with teachers, participating on the Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) team, partnering with the administrative team to develop intervention plans, participating in school wide efforts such as Intersession (a week where students have experiential offsite learning), providing Trauma Informed Education training, and supporting ASCEND’s desire to establish a stronger culture around receiving and providing direct feedback.
This level of integration has not always been easy for our staff and has required communication and collaboration with the administrative team around staff capacity and boundaries. As we fine-tune the process for providing short term therapy this level of collaboration will continue, ensuring that Seneca staff have the opportunity to co-construct the process for services delivery with their capacity in mind. Overall, it is great to see our clinical team valued as members of the ASCEND community and we look forward to continuing to evolve in our partnership to provide the most responsive supports for this school community.
This level of integration has not always been easy for our staff and has required communication and collaboration with the administrative team around staff capacity and boundaries. As we fine-tune the process for providing short term therapy this level of collaboration will continue, ensuring that Seneca staff have the opportunity to co-construct the process for services delivery with their capacity in mind. Overall, it is great to see our clinical team valued as members of the ASCEND community and we look forward to continuing to evolve in our partnership to provide the most responsive supports for this school community.
Blog Post Written By: Mark Thibedeau, Clinical Supervisor
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