Program provides mental health services to kids in rural school districts

WAVERLY, Iowa (KWWL) – If you live in a rural community, you may not have access to mental health care.

But one program is trying to change that.

SERVING RURAL SCHOOL DISTRICTS

Pathways has an outreach program called ‘School Mental Health Services.’ Six social workers travel to about 15 schools in rural areas. Without their help, some kids may not get the counseling they need.

Many of the schools have grants to fund the clinicians’ work. They won’t turn a child away from services due to funding. If a community doesn’t have grant money, parents pay for the care through insurance. Some school districts will even pick up a small fee.

One mom, Nikki Schneider, said school is difficult. Expectations are high.

“For kids just nowadays, things are a lot harder,” she said. “They expect a lot more out of you.”

Schneider’s daughter, Lexi, sees Wendy Kepford, a clinical social worker, through the program. Kepford helps treat many different mental health issues in children.

“A lot of anxiety, a lot of depression, even among the younger children. Depression, anxiety, ADHD, family problems,” Kepford explained.

Schneider said Pathways’ outreach program has helped her daughter a lot this past school year. She started seeing her when she began kindergarten at Margaretta Carey Elementary in Waverly.

“Lexi deals with trauma from early on, so for her, it’s coping skills, and it’s also for self-confidence,” Schneider said.

LACK OF ACCESS

But if you don’t live near mental health services, bringing your child to therapy may be challenging, or even impossible.

“When you live in a rural community, you lose so much time from just travel,” Kepford said. “It’s just easier to have a therapist come to the school and serve all the kids, rather than all the kids coming to see us.”

Some mental health illnesses may be left untreated.

“The majority of the kids that we see, if we weren’t in the schools, would not get services at all, and that is an absolute truth, that if we’re not here, there’s kids that are going to be going without mental health services,” Kepford explained.

When kids get the help they need, they’re more successful.

“If a child isn’t mentally healthy, they’re not going to be able to learn, so schools are acknowledging kids need more support,” Kepford said.

That support comes from a team of people in the community: parents, teachers and caregivers.

“It does take a village, absolutely,” Schneider said. “It does.”

FUTURE GOALS

In the Waverly area alone, Kepford said they treat 100 different kids each month at school.

Kepford said her goal is to reach more rural schools in eastern Iowa. She said they don’t have enough social workers to see all the kids who need help.

For more information about Pathways Behavioral Services, click here: https://www.pathwaysb.org/

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