Summary: Family Service Association of San Antonio, Inc. and Communities in Schools-San Antonio seek to increase the availability of trauma-informed treatment and care for children and youth who have experienced multiple adverse childhood experiences. Primary service modalities will include school-based mental health treatment, parenting support and education, and build out of this community’s trauma-focused continuum of care for children and youth.
Project Name: San Antonio Mobile Mental Wellness Collaborative (Collaborative)
Population to be Served: Students ages six to 18 who are low-income (90%), and predominantly Hispanic or Black (97%). All will have experienced significant trauma, for which they have not received treatment. All will be residents of San Antonio/Bexar County, Texas.
Goals, objectives and strategies. The Collaborative’s goal is to remove access barriers and deliver effective, trauma-informed treatment and services to 900 children and adolescents who have experienced trauma, and their families over a five year project period. An average of 180 students will be served each year, and all will attend elementary, middle or high school in one of five public school districts. Objectives include providing trauma-informed mental health screenings and assessments, delivering school-based counseling, connecting students with substance abuse and/or serious emotional disturbance to qualified community providers, and providing in-home family strengthening services to reduce stress and promote student access to and continued participation in care. The Collaborative also will train staff from schools and child-serving systems to recognize, understand, and be sensitive to trauma experiences in children and youth, and link them to evidence-based care.
On-site, trauma-informed screening, assessment, counseling and navigation, integrated into the school day, will augment schools’ insufficient behavioral health resources, fully mitigate access barriers, and produce significant impact, including: a) 75% of treated students will not experience symptom escalation; b) 85% will demonstrate improved academic performance; and c) the incidence of classroom disruptions will drop by 25%. A member of the research faculty at the University of Texas at San Antonio will conduct a process and outcome evaluation designed to validate best practices and advise further expansion and replication of the school-based Mobile Mental Wellness Collaborative.
