D&E is honored for school programs

By Harold Gwin

A depression awareness/suicide prevention program reached 20 schools last year.

YOUNGSTOWN — School-based mental health service programs run by D&E Counseling Center have earned the agency state and national recognition.

The center is one of only five agencies of its kind across the state to earn a listing in Quality and Effective Practice Registry of the Ohio Mental Health Network for School Success.

The center runs three school-based programs under its “Classroom Connections” banner:

UBehavioral consultation services with the Youngstown city schools.

UBehavioral consultation with the Mahoning County Education Service Center at its alternative school.

UA depression awareness, suicide prevention program in the Youngstown city and other Mahoning County schools.

The state registry is used to identify and promote programs engaging in innovative and effective practices to meet the social/emotional, behavioral and academic needs of youth, according to Kay Rietz, assistant deputy director of the Office of Children’s Services in the Ohio Department of Mental Health.

Programs must go through an application process that includes documentation of their effectiveness, an on-site visit and a review by various panels.

In notifying D&E of its listing, Reitz cited the center’s development of partnerships with the schools it serves and other community organizations. The center’s emphasis on family involvement in the treatment process was another significant positive factor, she said.

Gregory Cvetkovic, D&E executive director, said the schools and the education service center should be applauded for their willingness to work with mental health agencies to help kids.

The center has been providing its behavioral consultation services for a number of years, but the depression awareness, suicide prevention effort is a more recent development, officially launched in the fall of 2006 as a pilot program with the Mahoning County Mental Health Board promising $60,000 in annual funding for a two-year period.

It’s gone well beyond the pilot stage, said Joe Shorokey, D&E outpatient services director. It’s really taken off, he said, noting that the school demand for the service has grown to the point that a waiting list had to be created.

The program has two components — an educational offering teaching kids to be alert to the signs and symptoms of depression and where to get help for themselves or others, and a mental health screening, a 10-minute paper and pencil test looking for symptoms of depression or suicide. Parental permission is required to administer the test.

If a positive test result is found, that child gets a clinical interview and, if necessary, a recommendation for further assessment that can be done by a number of providers, Shorokey said.

Not all schools permit the screening, said Cvetkovic.

The program is structured so that only the services requested by a school are provided, he said. Everything is voluntary, and some schools want only the educational phase of the program, he said.

The service has drawn major support form the start, not only from the schools but from funding sources, Shorokey said.

The Mahoning County Mental Health Board is now funding the effort at the rate of $100,000 per year, and the program was barely launched in 2006 when the Margaret Clark Morgan Foundation in Hudson, Ohio, got involved and provided $93,000 a year for two years to expand the effort.

D&E is seeking to have that support level boosted to $153,000 a year.

The Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation has also contributed $25,000 a year for three years.

“We are booked through the school year,” Shorokey said, explaining that increased funding will allow D&E to increase its service capacity. The agency operated in 20 school buildings last school year and hopes to reach a total of 30 to 40 this year, he said.

Cvetkovic said the agency has been asked to make a presentation on its school-based programs before a national conference in Phoenix in January.

“We have been recognized as a model program,” he said, adding that Columbia University has asked for information on the depression awareness and suicide prevention program.

gwin@vindy.com