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Boys & Girls Club reports early gains from $125,000 ARPA mental-health pilot
Summary
Boys & Girls Club CEO Sandra Quigg told City Council the club’s city-funded ARPA pilot uses a coordinator, JMU evaluation and evidence-based curricula to address youth mental-health needs; staff turnover and capacity limits are the main challenges as the program seeks additional funding.
Sandra Quigg, chief executive officer of the Boys and Girls Club of Harrisonburg and Rockingham, told the City Council the club used an approximately $125,000 city ARPA grant to launch a three-pronged pilot that supports youth, staff and families.
"So I am Sandra Quigg. I serve as the CEO of Boys and Girls Club of Harrisonburg to Rockingham," Quigg said, describing the origin of the grant and the club’s role serving “6 to 800 on a regular basis, annually.” She said the pilot combined a mental-health advocate, a contracted data assistant and partnerships with Harrisonburg City Schools and James Madison University for staff training and evaluation.
Anna, a graduate student at James Madison University working on implementation and evaluation, outlined the curriculum and early outcome tracking. "So I'm a graduate student at JMU, and I'm working on a project both with implementation and evaluation," she said, describing use of an evidence-based C-learning curriculum alongside the Too Good for Drugs program and an online AREC tracking system for outcomes. Anna reported improvements on several measures over the pilot year while noting limitations in parent survey participation and staff capacity for trainings.
Dr. Caitlin Owens, an assistant professor at JMU involved in the partnership, said the program is piloting on-site clinical services by bringing university trainees to club sites. "I am also an assistant professor at JMU, and so part of my role there is training future clinical and school psychologists," Owens said, adding the arrangement could supply supervised clinical hours while expanding local therapeutic access.
Quigg told council the program pivoted staffing models after experiencing turnover in the mental-health advocate role; the club now uses a graduate assistant as a family-wellness navigator to stabilize coordination, data collection and direct youth work. Council members praised the effort and emphasized the challenge of sustaining funding beyond the ARPA window, noting staff will use pilot data to pursue additional grants.
