Community Counseling Services administrators want to reach at least 400 more youth with the help of a nearly $5 million grant to expand services throughout the Golden Triangle and beyond over the next five years.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has awarded the grant, which will be distributed in increments of $999,995 each year. The grant will support services for clients up to age 21, with a focus on ages 12-21.
“Community Counseling Services was previously awarded a similar grant that covered four of our counties,” CEO Jackie Edwards said in the press release. “It is ending Sept. 30 of this year and the new grant award expands our work to all seven of our counties in order to reach more individuals.”
Stephanie Taylor, administrator for Community Counseling’s Lowndes County office and children’s services director, said this is the fourth such grant the organization has received in the last decade, which together total about $22 million. The most recent, awarded four years ago, expanded Community Counseling’s youth services from Winston and Clay counties to Lowndes, Oktibbeha, Clay and Noxubee, and reached 415 children. With the new grant taking hold at the end of the month, Community Counseling will still serve those four counties, get back into Winston and add Webster and Choctaw.
The grant will also add 14 positions, including a project director, therapists and a outreach specialist, Taylor said. Some of those positions will work in the new counties, with others reinforcing already-existing services.
“The ultimate goal is to serve at least 400 youth,” she said.
“My guess is we’ll probably do more than that because we easily did the 415 with four counties, and now we’re going to have seven,” she later added.
Community Counseling takes a slightly different approach to children and youth’s mental health than more traditional mental health services, said Taylor. Instead of having only doctors and therapists work with clients, the organization works with other community support services and tries to address needs that are physical, educational and sometimes even spiritual if there is already a religious component in the client’s life. Community Counseling also hosts events, such as conferences for preteens entering puberty, and even popcorn and movie nights to encourage family bonding time. It has more of a “home feel,” Taylor said.
“You’re trying to target maybe youth that traditional services did not work for,” Taylor said. “Maybe they were uncomfortable with traditional services. When you look at this approach, it seems to have a higher success rate than sometimes … in the traditional building that’s a little more doctor feel. And the staff has smaller caseloads, so they can give them more time.
“We’ve had a lot of youth that, with the guidance of the program, have gone on to college and won scholarships, gotten good jobs in the community, gone into the military, gone into vocational programs or schools,” she added. “It’s about empowering them and their families while addressing their mental health needs.”
Taylor added it’s as important to address mental health issues that may not seem like a concern initially but which could grow into more serious problems for the child down the road. She suggested parents communicate with their kids and pick up on what is routinely unusual for their individual child. For example, she said, if a childs suddenly begins repeatedly having nightmares, it could mean he or she is anxious about something, or a child who begins saying over and over that they wish they didn’t exist may have the beginnings of depression. In cases like that, Taylor said, parents should feel comfortable reaching out and addressing those issues early, before the those children begin hurting themselves or others.
“Depression and some of the mental health issues can look different in kids than they do in adults,” she said. “And kids aren’t as seasoned or exposed to knowing all what feelings are about and how to put words into what’s going on, so they may not know to say. It may be something’s making them anxious, but they don’t know that word. … They just know they don’t feel right. So a lot of times when stuff’s going on, it gets turned into anger or acting out. … Sometimes it is just a behavioral thing, but other times it’s not.”
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