A NY District's Effort to Expand the Pipeline of Mental Health Providers into Rural Schools

The Sodus Central School District’s Mental Health Demonstration (MHD) grant, as part of Wayne County Community Schools, is helping to expand the pipeline of mental health providers into rural school districts. Specifically, they have partnered with five local Colleges and Universities to provide internship experiences for graduate level social workers, school counselors, mental health counselors, and school psychologists. They currently have 24 internship students placed in 19 buildings across six districts in rural Wayne County, New York. The MHD Internship Program is built upon the Collaboration ARCH (Attachment, Self-regulation, Competency, and Health) Model and grounded in culturally responsive, trauma-informed, evidence-based restorative practices organized using a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS).

Their MHD internship students receive a high level of supervision, including individual and interdisciplinary supervision from experts in the field. They are engaged in a variety of interventions: individual and group counseling, classroom delivery (Second Step), Check In Check Out, parent meetings, and ongoing collaboration and referrals to our community partners including mental health support, food distribution, and home visits.  Additionally, their internship students all receive specialized training in Restorative Practices, with supervision delivered using a Community Circle model. As part of this work, we have developed a Tier I Restorative Practices Toolkit. 

This toolkit has been shared with their region and most recently, the New York State Union of Teachers. The MHD Internship Program provided through this grant allows them to offer a meaningful opportunity to graduate students who can roll up their sleeves and “do the work” while positively impacting the lives of so many students and families in their rural community.

For more information on Wayne County Community Schools, please visit here.