Mental Health Services

GUSD educators have witnessed a dramatic increase in students displaying symptoms of trauma, depression, anxiety, and poor emotional regulation following the COVID-19 pandemic. About 9% of students in each grade need significant mental health intervention. Untreated mental and behavioral health issues contribute to self-harm, bullying, acting out in class, and other obstacles to learning. These problems impact the children directly involved, and they can also disrupt learning for other children in the classroom.

Significant barriers to obtaining needed care include poverty, lack of transportation, stigma, time constraints of working parents, and a shortage of culturally competent counselors.

GUSD has partnered with Family Service Agency (FSA) to employ a mental health specialist to provide early intervention and trauma-informed mental health care in after-school programs, with a focus on students who are low-income and/or English learners. This service contract began in Spring 2024 and has had a positive impact on students and families. The program is designed to use a wraparound approach, which is a youth-guided, family-driven, team planning process that provides coordinated and individualized community-based services for students and their families to help them achieve positive outcomes.

The therapist works directly with individual children and groups, screens students for mental health referrals, provides crisis intervention, and consults with parents and other family members. They can also train after-school staff so they can conduct group activities that promote mental health. The mental health specialists collaborates closely with school psychologists and teachers to provide early and responsive care to students who need it. Delivering services in an after-school program is an effective way to overcome many of the barriers that prevent children from getting timely mental health services.

We are already offering programming at three schools in the district (El Camino, La Patera and Isla Vista) with the highest percentage of students who are either learning English, are living in poverty, or are foster youth. The mental health specialist, Emanuel, is serving preschool, transitional kindergarten (TK), and K-6 students across these three sites and has been well-received by the school communities. His focus has been on building trust and a sense of safety with the students and caregivers, and he has become well-integrated and regularly collaborates with school staff. He also visits other school district sites as needed for risk assessments.

Thank you to our major funding partners for the pilot program in spring 2024!