Find more help for stressed students

Thank you for running this article about the increased stress on students, and the need for more counseling services for them. This is an important issue that affects student’s mental health and their school performance.

There is indeed a shortage of affordable behavioral health / mental health counseling available in the Sonoma Valley for students. There are some private therapists in Sonoma for those on traditional health insurance plans, but very few services for students who have Medi-Cal or who are uninsured.

In the article the School District Superintendent, Louann Carlomagno, states that more services from the Hospital and Sonoma Valley Community Health Center would be appreciated. SVCHC is a Federally Qualified Health Center. We provide high quality health care to patients with private health plans, as well as to patients with Medi-Cal, Medi-Care, and the uninsured.
Our mandate is to provide behavioral health counseling to our health center patients with Medi-Cal and the uninsured, who cannot easily get these services elsewhere. Health Center patients with private insurance plans who have mental health needs are referred to their insurance plan mental health providers. We see a lot of students and their families who live in the Valley, a number of them referred to us by local schools.

We offer brief individual and family therapy, ADHD assessments, support for students with learning and developmental issues, and drug and alcohol counseling. We provide services in English and in Spanish. We also work closely with the CAPE and SAY teams mentioned in the article.

The author has identified a pressing need for additional counseling resources for students and their families in the Sonoma Valley. One solution, found in most parts of the County, except for our Valley, are low fee counseling centers, such as Social Advocates for Youth, or Family Service Association.

Community leaders should support the efforts of low fee counseling centers to get established, and to survive in the Sonoma area. Perhaps offering a rent subsidized building would help, as local rents are prohibitive for many non-profits. There may be other solutions.

I would also encourage those who would like to help build the political and financial support needed to develop more mental health services in the Sonoma Valley to join the Mental Health Thinking Partners group, sponsored by the principal at El Verano Elementary School, Maite Iturri, and La Luz Center. This group meets at El Verano School and is open to interested parties.
Many local stakeholders who are also concerned about this issue have been meeting in this group to try to identify the communities mental health needs, resources, and mental health service gaps, and to create consensus and political support for developing these services in our Valley.

I hope that your article will help mobilize the kind of community support needed to create and support counseling services for our students.
Joseph Cutler LCSW
Director, Behavioral Health Services
Sonoma Valley Community Health Center