KBH Provides Mental
Health Services in the Schools
Kennebec Behavioral Health’s School-Based Program has been helping school-age
children and adolescents in the school setting since 1996. A clinical program
that enhances traditional guidance programs, KBH is in thirty-four
schools in Central and Mid-Coast Maine. For schools, a primary goal of this service is to
reduce barriers to learning. For example, if a student is struggling with a mental
health diagnosis, or living in a chaotic home with domestic violence or substance
abuse issues, a KBH clinician is in the school to help them develop the skills
needed to be successful in school and in life. Many of these students cannot
get services in one of the KBH clinics due to a parent’s inability to transport
them or because of their own problems. The KBH School-Based clinician can work
with a student on how they can grow and develop despite their challenges in life.
“We
help kids be the best they can be by working with them
and with their families in the schools.”
Colleen Madigan,
Director of School-Based Services
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Schools are very supportive of students and want them to succeed
academically and personally. The KBH School-Based Program
can assist with that goal. On any given day, in the schools
with which KBH contracts, credentialed KBH counselors can be
found dealing with the results of domestic violence, substance
abuse, sex abuse or depression. Some people wonder why the
school’s guidance office
can’t deal with students’ problems, but more difficult mental health
issues need more intensive therapy or support. In a recent example, School-Based
Program counselor Colleen Madigan described two young girls whose anxiety reflected
the family’s serious poverty and anxiety over money problems. Reducing
that anxiety was an important week-to-week task for her to enable those girls
to be ready to learn rather than being preoccupied with worry about having a
home or food.
Critical to children’s services, Colleen states, is obtaining parental
involvement. KBH mental health providers always hope that the home-school connection
will assist in supporting the child or adolescent, but often it is not that easy.
Success is when parent, child, and school are in agreement about how to meet
challenges, and they support each other in meeting those challenges.
Towns served
| Augusta |
Manchester |
Pittston |
Waterville |
| Bingham |
Moscow |
Randolph |
Wayne |
| Bristol |
Mt. Vernon |
Readfield |
West Gardiner |
| Damariscotta |
Newcastle |
Richmond |
Windsor |
| Dresden |
Nobleboro |
Somerville |
Winslow |
| Gardiner |
Palermo |
South Bristol |
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The School-Based Program also serves
a number of Head Start Programs in
Kennebec and Somerset Counties. |
Overview
The School-Based program offers access to
a continuum of behavioral health services to students at
their schools with a goal of reducing barriers to learning.
Focused on the student and his/her family, the collaborative effort between the
school and a team of behavioral health professionals offers psycho-social, substance
abuse and crisis assessments when a student is referred by school personnel.
After a diagnosis is made, counseling is provided at the
school, consistent with the student’s treatment plan.
This may consist of group and individual treatment, consultation
with parents and school personnel.
Referrals for other services can also be made, based on the needs of the student
and family.
“When the
School-Based
clinician connects
successfully with a
student, it reduces the
barriers to learning.”
Cheryl Davis,
Administrator of
Community Services
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