Officials say the program connects students with licensed therapists within days to address anxiety, depression and more.
Atrium Health school therapy program (PHOTO: 41NBC/Bre’Anna Sheffield)
HOUSTON COUNTY, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) —Atrium Health’s school-based virtual therapy program is now offering students in middle through high school students’ greater access to mental health services. The virtual mental health services address anxiety, depression and behavioral issues, reducing the number of missed school days and lowering any obstacles children may face.
Donnie Mitchem, the director for outpatient therapy at Atrium Behavioral Health in Charlotte, says the service started in 2020 when schools transitioned to virtual learning due to the Covid pandemic. Since then, Atrium has expanded this service to schools throughout the southeast, including 60 here in Georgia.
“Since that time, we have expanded our school based teletherapy to over 300 schools,” Mitchem said. “And really what we’re focused on is providing quality access to care to students, where students can get services by a licensed mental health therapist for 10 days or less.”
Shool districts and Atrium want to stress this is all done with a parental permission.
“The school identifies the need, gets consent from that parent, then makes that referral to our mental health clinicians,” Mitchem said. “After that time the clinician meets with that parent and the student, and they provide therapy for anything you would seek therapy for in outpatient care. depression, anxiety, grief, divorce, ADHD.”
Dana Wiggins, the assistant superintendent for student services in Houston County, says the county noticed a need for more therapy due to all the students within the district.
“We have over 31,000 students here in Houston County,” Wiggins said. “So as you can imagine, most elementary schools have one counselor, middle and high have more, but just having this extra layer of therapy added into what we’re already doing is a need that we saw.”
Mitchem shares the biggest impact they’ve seen since using this service.
“We have seen a 38% improvement in depressive symptoms with our students, and a 36% improvement in students with anxiety symptoms,” Mitchem said. “And really the most important thing that we have seen is with over 2,000 students, zero students have died by suicide, who have been engaged in teletherapy.”
This program is offered in select schools within Crawford, Houston, Peach and Bibb counties.