County looking at CHAC partnership to preserve and provide mental health services
SAN JOSE – Santa Clara County is exploring options to collaborate with CHAC (formerly known as the Community Health Awareness Council) to provide counseling services, a mental health clinic with training opportunities for mental health professionals, and family resource centers in northern Santa Clara County schools and communities. This collaboration, proposed by County Supervisors Joe Simitian and Otto Lee at the Board’s Tuesday, May 9 Budget Workshop, could create a new service model for the County to partner with local organizations to meet the demand for mental health services.
“Affordable mental health services can be hard to come by, especially services that are offered in easy to access locations,” said Simitian. “CHAC has built trust with the community and parents, so it’s important that we figure out a way to partner to maintain and expand these much needed services.”
CHAC’s work is an “integrated care” model of working with school districts (Los Altos Elementary School District, Mountain View Los Altos High School District, Mountain View Whisman School District, and Sunnyvale School District) to support the psychological and emotional well-being of students in grades K-12. All school-based programs are provided free of charge to students and their families. CHAC provides robust mental health services to nearly 6,000 students in 35 K-12 schools.
“CHAC has provided direct and preventative mental health services and programming for years, and they meet their clientele where they are: at school,” said Laura Ramirez Berman, Board President of Mountain View Whisman School District in a letter of support for the proposed collaboration. “Children receive short-term and longer-term 1:1 counseling, as well as group counseling and coaching, depending on the need. Additionally, CHAC supports the whole classroom community by teaching whole class social-emotional skills lessons, which benefit both the students and the teachers.”
The CHAC Clinic in Mountain View also provides multilingual and multicultural counseling for children, teens, adults, couples, and families of all ages. Counseling is provided on a sliding scale of payment. Also, CHAC’s Family Resource Center collaborates with FIRST 5 Santa Clara County and other community partners to offer programs that help more than 8,000 parents and other caregivers understand the importance of physical and social-emotional development during the first years of life and early school years, provide enrichment activities for children, and supply essentials like diapers and baby formula. Family resource centers are located in Cupertino, Mountain View, and Sunnyvale and a rotating site in West San Jose.
“The biggest takeaway from the pandemic is that we need to bring services closer to our residents, so we must close gaps every chance we get,” said Lee. “CHAC continues to deliver outstanding services, especially their experience working with our youth. By making this investment to CHAC, we’re able to expand services to all ages, and most important across cultures and languages so the whole community has access to help.”
CHAC is also a major source of training for the next generation of mental health professionals, including graduate and doctoral students in a program accredited by the American Psychological Association. While many organizations in Santa Clara County provide internships placements for graduate students, CHAC has one of the largest programs and last year provided training for 84 future mental health practitioners. CHAC is also one of two American Psychological Association accredited community-based organizations providing internship placements for doctoral students.
“For decades, CHAC has performed such services for schools and cities at prices no other agency can match,” wrote Phil Faillace, Ph.D., President of Mountain View Los Altos High School District Board. “CHAC’s unique operational model combines the provision of those services with the closely supervised training of graduate students accumulating the many hours of practical experience required to be a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (“LMFT”) or to earn a doctorate in related behavioral sciences. That combination has made CHAC’s services exceptionally effective as well as cost effective. It has also produced a steady stream of many new LMFTs to serve county residents.”
Fifty years ago, CHAC was founded by concerned parents and community leaders. A joint powers authority (JPA) agreement between local cities (the town of Los Altos Hills and the cities of Los Altos and Mountain View) and school districts (Los Altos Elementary School District, Mountain View Los Altos High School District, and Mountain View Whisman School District) partially fund the program.
“Times change; funding systems change; the regulatory environment changes. I applaud CHAC for recognizing that their model and structure needs to evolve in order to keep serving County residents,” said Simitian. By collaborating with the County, the organization hopes to be able to accept reimbursement from Medi-Cal for serving low-income patients. The County partnership will help ensure there is no disruption in the essential services CHAC is currently providing.
“As a JPA representative (representing the Town of Los Altos Hills on the CHAC board) for the last four years, I've seen firsthand the impact of CHAC's work, especially in these trying post-COVID times,” shared George Tyson, who is Treasurer of CHAC; Councilmember from the Town of Los Altos Hills; and a former Cupertino Union School District Board Member. “This collaboration is an important source of strength as we prepare for whatever mental health challenges come next.”
Next steps are for County Administration and County Counsel to return to the Board on June 13, 2023, with options to collaborate and/or partner with CHAC and its affiliated Joint Powers Authority members and contracted entities and service recipients to ensure the continued provision of services. These options could include, but are not limited to, the County formally joining the Joint Powers Authority.
For more information, review the May 9 legislative file.