ABOUT HEALTHY MINDS, HEALTHY SCHOOLS
HEALTHY MINDS, HEALTHY SCHOOLS IS A COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL-BASED
MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAM TARGETING THE NEEDS OF CHILDREN AND
FAMILIES IN CHICAGO'S UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES.
SCHOOL - BASED SERVICES
Healthy Minds, Healthy Schools provides comprehensive mental health services to multiple Public and Charter Schools across Chicago. School partners receive the following array of services based on needs determined together with the school community.
Healthy Minds, Healthy Schools directly enhances students’ academic success, social-emotional development and wellbeing through comprehensive, multi-tiered mental health services, access to resources and community engagement.
Multi-Tiered Support System is a framework to ensure successful education outcomes for ALL students by using a data-based problem-solving process to provide and evaluate the effectiveness of multiple tiers of integrated academic, behavior, and social- emotional instruction/intervention supports matched to student need.
Individual, group, and family therapy
Case management
Crisis management
Home visits
Student and family psychoeducational workshops
Staff consultations and professional development to increase capacity
around social-emotional issues
Collaboration with Behavioral Health Teams (BHT) or assistance
developing a BHT.
Individual/Classroom clinical observations
Take an in-depth look at the intervention structure implemented by Gads Hill to support MTSS framework:
Master-Level Clinicians utilize culturally, and linguistically relevant interventions adapted to meet the needs of each client. We utilize evidence-based practices and adopt a data-driven approach to best support the whole child.
Our development of services is individualized and draws upon the following clinical theories:
Family Systems
Strength-based Practice
Solution Focused Brief Therapy
Check and Correct
Motivational Interviewing
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Multi-Tiered Systems of Support Framework (MTSS)
Relational Therapy?
Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support (PBIS)
And many more…
- Youth with emotional difficulties suffer from higher rates of suspensions, expulsions, truancy and behavioral referrals, which can impact academic performance.
- One in six U.S. youth aged 6-17 experience a mental health disorder each year (Whitney & Peterson, 2019).
- Half of all mental health conditions begin by age 14 (Kessler et al., 2005).
- Nationally, approximately 14%-20% of students in public schools face serious emotional or behavioral challenges
- In schools serving low-income students, the percentage of students with serious emotional or behavioral challenges increases to as high as 50%?(UCLA Center for Mental Health and Schools,2003).
- From a sample of 140 of our students, in two separate schools over a treatment period of 10 months, frequency of behavioral incidents was reduced by 67%.
- Have helped over 22 schools receive some type of mental health support.
- Students who participate in services often experience improvement in GPA and attendance.
- Builds capacity to ensure staff members can realize their full potential, both personally and professionally.
- Improves climate and morale of schools.
EARLY HEAD START
Studies of child development demonstrate that the early childhood period from 0 to 5 is critical as the foundation for a healthier lifelong mental health. Several studies demonstrate that disruptions in the social emotional area during this period can affect the child’s capacity on how to relate to others, how to manage emotions and changes, including and not limiting how to adapt to school and the learning process.
Healthy Minds, Healthy Schools offers the following services to support mental health in Gads Hill Center’s Early Childhood Programs and Partner Network: social emotional screenings, child observations to target specific areas in need of support, parent consultation and psychoeducational workshops. We are also committed to support our children and their families during the process of development of IFSP (Individualized Family Support Plan and IEP (Individualized Education Plan) with advocacy and staff professional development trainings to better support the child. GADS Early childhood Program has been design to support children during their early developmental milestones to increase resilience and increase the chances of achievement of long-term outcomes.
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PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT - A la Carte Services
The health of a program or organization is directly dependent on the wellbeing of its staff members and their emotional intelligence. A study described in Psychology Today, identifies employee wellness as the strongest predictor of job performance.
Healthy Minds, Healthy Schools provides professional development services that increase internal capacities by offering trainings on subjects that include:
- Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace
- Stress Management
- Team Building
- Trauma-Informed Strategies
- For a more comprehensive list of our available workshops, click here
The topics can be individualized to meet the professional development needs of staff members or the learning needs of families and community members. All workshops are tailored to the specific needs of the community and offered in English and/or Spanish as requested. We seek to ensure that our staff members achieve their full potential, both personally and professionally.
OUR TESTIMONIALS
Since working with my therapist a lot has changed in my life both inside and outside of school. I feel through her persistent motivation and support she is helping me find ways to turn my actions into a better reflection of the person I want to become. Since working with her I’ve come to school early, I’ve been doing my assignments more, been communicating with teachers on what I could be doing better and increased my focus on attendance and not being tardy to class. She is helping me connect how much my ‘in the moment’ decision-making will affect my future goals and visions for myself.
Gads Hill Center is an extremely supportive partner to the schools, whenever you need them they are there and have an immediate response.
Gads Hill Center’s impact and their influence in the school is something we can’t even begin to measure … I think the long term effect in what they can bring to the table is just phenomenal.
Gads Hill Center staff fully immerses themselves in our teams and systems. They go above and beyond to provide consistent service for students on their caseloads and also help us build proactive interventions that support all students.
I feel saved. I feel like I’ve improved ever since I’ve been working with Gads Hill Center.
Since working with my therapist a lot has changed in my life both inside and outside of school. I feel through her persistent motivation and support she is helping me find ways to turn my actions into a better reflection of the person I want to become.
Our Gads Hill Center clinician has built a trusting relationship and good rapport with all stakeholders. She has been successful with assisting families in overcoming obstacles that prevent their children from attending school on a regular basis and arriving on time. Just this week we had a student in attendance every day who had been absent for several months prior to her involvement. She is a diligent worker with a very warm and welcoming disposition. We are very happy to have her working on our attendance team.