Listen: David W. Gordon, Sacramento County Superintendent of Schools
David W. Gordon, Sacramento County Superintendent of Schools, and Dr. Peter Beilenson, Director of the Sacramento County Department of Health Services, will formally announce a groundbreaking partnership that over the next several years will place mental health clinicians in every school in the county and make schools “centers of wellness” in their communities. The program has the approval of the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors. The initial cohort starting this fall will include ten schools. Detailed background information will be provided at the news conference.
: SCOE will work with districts to create a phased rollout beginning with schools identified with the greatest needs. The goal is to expand the program to place a mental health clinician, or ready access to a clinician, in every school in Sacramento County within the next several years.
The clinicians working in each school will be SCOE employees supported with sustainable funding from Medi-Cal. The vision is to identify the mental health needs of students as early as possible, provide treatment and care for those identified, reduce “downstream” effects of unmet mental health needs, and reduce stigma associated with mental health needs.
As the Sacramento County community works to ensure schools are centers of wellness, SCOE willprovide professional development forall school and mental health staff to create a system-wide continuum of care for mental health and wellness, linked to California’s new “social-emotional learning” guiding principles. The program will have a rigorous evaluation drawing on extensive data from the mental health landscape and Sacramento County districts and schools.