New York City Mayor Eric Adams and NYC Health + Hospitals have announced the opening of 16 school-based mental health clinics in New York City Department of Education (DOE) schools over the next six months to serve over 6,000 students across the Bronx and Central Brooklyn. Clinics will offer students access to individual, family, and group therapy, with connections to outpatient clinics and telehealth services as needed. Additionally, teachers and school staff will have access to mental health clinic staff for consultation, trainings, and workshops to ensure students are appropriately supported and referred to care.
Schools will also receive support so they can respond to mental health crises without contacting 911 unnecessarily and avoid needless emergency room visits and hospitalizations. The 16 new satellite clinics build on the five existing mental health clinics that NYC Health + Hospitals already utilizes in the city’s public schools.
The new school-based mental health clinics are funded with $3.6 million from the Mental Health Continuum, a $5 million partnership between NYC Health + Hospitals, DOE, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), and Advocates for Children announced as part of the Adams administration’s mental health agenda, “Care, Community, Action: A Mental Health Plan for New York City.” The clinics also received a total of $700,000 in grants from the New York State Office of Mental Health through the Mental Health Outpatient Treatment and Rehabilitative Service Program.
“The stress, isolation, and anxiety of the COVID-19 pandemic pushed mental health to the forefront of the conversation for so many of us,” said Mayor Adams. “By investing in student mental health and delivering services right where young people need them most — in our public schools — we are building upstream solutions that will help us build a healthier city.”
“Family and youth mental health are key components of our overall plan to support mental health for all New Yorkers,” said Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom. “We are creating a layered approach to supporting young people adding these clinics in the Bronx and Brooklyn to a combination of other touch points including our TeenSpace initiative offering free tele-mental health services to young people.”
“Youth mental health is at a critical point and these new clinical services are needed now more than ever, especially in our schools,” said NYC Health + Hospitals Deputy Chief Medical Officer and System Chief of Behavioral Health Omar Fattal, MD, MPH. “These satellite clinics will provide a critical access point for students to get timely access to mental health services both inside of schools and at outpatient clinics.”
DOE Chancellor David C. Banks said, “Now, in its third year, over 50 schools in the South Bronx and Central Brooklyn have received access to expedited care for students struggling with mental health challenges through NYC Health + Hospitals clinics and Children’s Mobile Crisis Teams. Schools will also receive support to engage in whole school collaborative problem-solving, an approach to reduce challenging behavior, build skills, and strengthen relationships.”
