SCHOOL-BASED SERVICES
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Partnerships with schools follow a collaborative process, beginning with an individualized needs approach conducted by qualified clinicians to maximize impact on the school community. Overall, Healthy Minds, Healthy Schools (HMHS) uses a holistic model to impact clients, institutions, and communities on multiple levels. Offering services directly in schools ensures resource accessibility, providing staff, students, and families with the tools that lead to academic success. Experienced, trauma-informed clinicians use a multi-tiered model to facilitate a comprehensive array of interventions that help build a more integrative, sustainable educational environment. HMHS has helped transform over 16 schools in the Chicago area in ten different communities.
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HMHS Model
School Staff - Building Capacity
- An initial assessment is conducted collaboratively to inform the strategic implementation of services, tailored to the individual school’s needs.
- Clinicians develop collaborative partnerships with school staff members through strategic problem-solving that enhances the organizational process and strengthens school culture.
- Specific services for staff include, but are not limited to: expanding the efficacy of the behavioral health team, facilitation of professional development, and classroom observations which lead to targeted professional coaching. In addition, staff also have access to solution-focused consultations.
Children and Youth - A Targeted Approach
- Clinicians use evidence-based, culturally and linguistically-relevant interventions to enhance students’ academic achievement, social-emotional development, and holistic well-being.
- Interventions help reduce symptoms of mental illness, including disruptive behavior and aggression, self-harm, substance abuse, depression, anxiety, trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder, bullying, and low motivation.
- Specific services for students include, but are not limited to: assessment and individualized goal setting, crisis intervention, individual and group therapy, conflict resolution, as well as linkage and referral to services.
Families - Strengthening Communities
- Clinicians engage caregivers and families to enhance environmental support and promote investment in holistic wellness and academic goals. In addition, it ensures accessibility to resources.
- Family-centered interventions develop capacity to strengthen the family unit and fortify the student’s support system.
- Specific services for families include, but are not limited to: home visits, parent conferences, family therapy, crisis management, capacity-building workshops, and family support services.
“I think there is no way to be able to measure the impact that Gads Hill has had on Gage Park. Not only the students, but the staff, and the overall climate. They are very helpful, very resourceful, very knowledgeable, and more importantly, an intricate part of the school. I think their impact and their influence in the school is something we can’t even begin to measure, just because it’s so much more than I could have imagined. In all honesty, sometimes having partnerships, you can guess what the impact is, but I think the long-term effect in what they can bring to the table is just phenomenal. They are a true partner in every sense of the word. It’s not like they are a partner from outside of the school; they are definitely a partner inside of the school.” – Brian Metcalf; Chief Officer of CPS Network 6, Former Gage Park Principal
For more information or to partner with the Healthy Minds, Healthy Schools program at your school, please contact Rosa Julia Garcia Rivera.
