Gossips missed an article that appeared in the Tuesday's Register-Star: "Mental Health changes name, adds locations." It reports that the Columbia County Office of Mental Health will henceforward be called "Behavioral Health Services." It also announces that Behavioral Health Services is opening two satellite offices: one in Valatie and one in John L. Edwards Primary School here in Hudson. Valatie is 12 or so miles away from 325 Columbia Street, where Behavioral Health Services is now located; John L. Edwards is two blocks away. The JLE office will serve schoolchildren and their families only.
It would seem that the presence of a county behavioral health facility in one of the schools might have some cost saving implications for the Hudson City School District, which employs six psychiatrists/psychologists, two of them assigned to the primary school, but apparently not. The satellite office will have "therapists and prescribers," which, according to Behavioral Health Services Director Michael Cole, "can provide another dimension of what's already there."
This continues the terrible trend -- now, some 20+ years old -- of turning our schools into social service and mental health delivery institutions. We used to have school system that believed teaching kids how to read and write was the best way to build bridges to personal productivity and mental health. We've turned that notion on its head and you can see how it has worked with reading and math and science test scores and dropout rates -- with, of course, the result being that of having even more people dependent on social services!
ReplyDeleteWhat a 'business!' There MUST be something in the water here. Just more of the same old same old without any real leadership or change. We all will need Behavioral Health Services if this town doesn't wake up.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about that. Quite a few of the kids I went to school with would have benefited from some on site behavioral services. It might have helped them into a job instead of Rahway State Prison.
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