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District expands on-site counseling: Arbor Family referrals all accepted; new therapists added under school mental-health grant
Summary
Ralston Public Schools reported 82 Arbor Family referrals (all accepted) in the semiannual utilization report and described new on-site school mental-health therapists placed after spring break through a federal grant.
District staff presented a semiannual utilization report for Arbor Family Counseling and described recent school-mental-health expansions funded through a federal grant.
Staff said the semiannual report (June–December) showed 82 referrals and that 100% of those referrals were accepted and served through either the employee assistance program or student services. The district noted that of students referred, about half received on-site services: district figures cited 63 on-site referrals with roughly 28 students seen in buildings on-site.
The presentation highlighted that Arbor’s point of contact, Jeff Krinzer, has worked with the district for about 11 years and that the vendor provides bilingual capacity. District staff said a bilingual therapist who had been present half-time during a practicum period is now on-site one full day per week to serve bilingual students.
Separately, district staff described activity under the federal school mental-health grant administered by ESU 3. The district added a bilingual mental-health therapist at Mockingbird and a therapist at the middle school in April; staff reported that Mockingbird had 16 accepted group and individual referrals since the therapist started and the middle school had 12 accepted individual referrals in the same period. The district said those additions served 28 additional students in roughly three weeks of service after spring break.
Administrators and board members discussed the importance of on-site services to reduce instructional disruption and to reach families who struggle to arrange off-site care. Board members also noted that higher referral counts after adding services should not be read as increased need alone, but as improved access and uptake.
Staff said the district is coordinating with partners including OneWorld and Project Harmony Connections and that some private therapists who had relationships with students may continue using district facilities through memoranda of understanding to avoid disrupting established therapeutic relationships.
