School-linked behavioral health services

Therapeutic Teaching Model

School-linked behavioral health that provides therapy on site is an effective, proven intervention in public schools. But, when students are referred out of their home districts to an Intermediate School District, their needs are often much greater than therapy alone can address. Students from the West Metro come to Intermediate School District 287 because they have complex needs that other schools aren’t equipped to support. In order to provide the district’s youngest students with effective, early intervention, the district is implementing a Therapeutic Teaching Model in partnership with the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation.

Beyond on-site or in-home individual and family therapy, children and their families have access to additional intensive supports. The cornerstones of the Therapeutic Teaching Model include:

• Education + Therapy in the Classroom: An embedded therapist in the classroom helps the day flow naturally between academics, emotional regulation, and social skills
  
  
• Individual Therapy: The student receives individual therapy during and after the school day, in addition to in-classroom therapeutic approaches
  
  
• Family Therapy: The family receives family therapy in the home or in the community
  
  
• Family Resources: A family resource navigator offers care coordination and basic needs support for the families — assistance for things like securing housing, jobs, food and other needs
  
  
• Professional Development for School Staff: Extensive professional development for teachers, educational assistants, therapists, school safety staff and other school support staff

Northeast Metro 916 Intermediate School District is partnering with Canvas Health in order to offer comprehensive and innovative services to students in Level IV special education programs at all grade levels. These services are aimed at improving the academic and social-emotional skills in students who have the highest needs so that they can be successful in school and life. Services include:

• Early Childhood Intervention and Treatment Program: By intervening early with young children experiencing trauma and behavioral challenges, chronic and long-term mental illness and school failure can be prevented. We aim to return students to their neighborhood school by age 6.
  
  
• Mental and Chemical Health Wellbeing: To address student addiction and chemical health needs, training will be offered to students and staff on signs and symptoms of addiction, as well as outpatient treatment located at Bellaire Education Center for students and referrals to outside treatment centers.
  
  
• Educational Mental Health Classroom: Classrooms have been created at Karner Blue Education Center, Blaine and Pankalo Education Center, Lake Elmo where school-based mental health staff work side-by-side with teachers to provide high-level academic and emotional/behavioral support. This temporary intervention prepares students to be successful in a typical 916 classroom.

ISD 917 ECSE TEA (Therapeutic Education Alternative) Therapeutic Preschool Program

At the core of this program is the understanding that for young children, development occurs in the context of relationships. When young learners are unsuccessful in their childcare setting or preschool placement due to emotional and/or behavioral difficulties, a change in setting is necessary. The program provides trauma informed interventions and practices to support the emotional needs of each child. ISD 917 provides the TEA program at Pine Bend Elementary, Inver Grove Heights and Riverview Elementary, Farmington. 

The framework utilized by the ECSE TEA program is Conscious Discipline, a comprehensive classroom management program and social-emotional curriculum. While academics are embedded in the program, the focus is on healthy social emotional development for young learners ages 3 - 5, using the Diagnostic Criteria for birth – five years old (DC:0–5) in an integrated education and mental health program. The program is five days weekly, approximately four hours each day. A mental health professional and special education teacher co-facilitate the program. 

As young learners make progress in the program towards their education and mental health goals, they are provided opportunities to integrate into a less restrictive educational setting with their same aged peers. The goal is to provide rigorous instruction to young learners to facilitate kindergarten readiness.