AltaPointe pitches expanded day-treatment program to serve Baldwin County students; board discusses capacity and consent

Representatives from AltaPointe, a public community mental health provider, outlined plans Tuesday to expand an intensive day-treatment and education program model now used in Mobile to serve Baldwin County students with severe behavioral needs.

"We are a community mental health center... We are 1 of 19 public community mental health centers in the state of Alabama," said Turk Schlesinger, chief executive officer of AltaPointe, opening the presentation. He described AltaPointe's role under state law to assess mental health and substance-use needs and to partner with local providers to meet service needs.

Jarrett Crum, AltaPointe hospital administrator, and Nicolette Harvey, administrator for Bay Point Hospital and the West Mobile Academy program, presented program details and outcomes. Harvey said the existing West Mobile program served 242 students last year and that a local day-treatment site in Baldwin County currently serves 30 students. "Right now, you're currently serving 34 students, which could equal 34 disrupted classrooms in the Baldwin County Board of Education world," Harvey said, explaining the district impact the program intends to address.

Presenters described program elements and results: intensive individual and group therapy over a school year, classroom staffing that includes a general-education teacher, a special-education teacher and two behavioral staff per classroom (typically about 15 students per room), and therapy hours delivered within the school so families do not have to transport children to outside appointments. Harvey said the program collected outcome data showing that "90 percent of the children that left our programs left successfully," and that among students who discharged successfully, 84 percent showed academic gains in math and 86 percent in reading.

Deborah Outlaw, identified as an educator with the program, summarized admission criteria: children must exhibit at least five behaviors from a list of roughly 22, such as severe physical or verbal aggression, elopement, very defiant behaviors, poor school performance or truancy. She said the admissions follow Department of Mental Health criteria and that parent consent is required at referral and at enrollment for services.

Board members asked about capacity and unmet need. Presenters said the Baldwin County day-treatment capacity is currently 30 (10 elementary/10 middle/10 high) and that last year the program received 75 referrals and served 34 students, leaving about 41 referrals unserved. Board members pressed about timeline, facility ownership and funding. AltaPointe said funding for the Mobile County contract comes from the county and from third-party billing, including Medicaid; AltaPointe also cited ARPA funds used to expand some hospital beds in Baldwin County. AltaPointe said Bay Point Hospital and West Mobile Academy facilities are owned by AltaPointe and overseen by its board of directors, and said potential facility arrangements for Baldwin County could be negotiated.

Several board members expressed eagerness to move quickly while also asking for tours of existing AltaPointe facilities in Mobile so the board could see operations firsthand. One board member asked whether the district would lose existing behavior services if it contracted with AltaPointe; presenters and district staff said school-based services would remain and the AltaPointe program would supplement services for students who have not been successful in less intensive settings.

No formal vote occurred; board members indicated they would place the proposal on an upcoming agenda for additional discussion and possible action.

Why it matters: district leaders and a regional mental health provider framed the proposal as a way to serve students with severe behavioral needs while keeping classrooms safe and preserving instructional time. Program outcomes presented by AltaPointe — return-to-school rates and measured academic gains — are central to the board's consideration of program expansion, funding and facility arrangements.