Program that provides mental health services to Philly students expands to 2 more schools

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A program that provides mental health services to Philly students is expanding to two other schools.

Since 2021, counselors and clinicians from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia have offered mental health services to students at Girard College , a five-day boarding school. The school-based mental health pilot helped about 300 students through anxiety and depression, according to Girard President David Hardy.

“When you see children who are going through those issues, it affects all of the other issues in school,” he said. “The fact is, you can’t learn if you have those kinds of struggles.”

Now, the program — funded by the Independence Blue Cross Foundation — is expanding to Hardy Williams Elementary Mastery Charter and the district ’s Add B. Anderson School. The program will then be available to about 1,000 Philly students.

Debora Carrera, the mayor’s chief education officer, knows from her experience as a principal that having services available in school makes a difference.

“While we were surrounded by mental health agencies, the students didn’t go,” she noted.

Independence Health Group CEO Greg Deavens told a student mental health summit Thursday that the program has seen results.

“We found that about two-thirds of the students say that the treatment they received helped them to do better or to feel better,” he added.

He said students are six times more likely to continue their treatment if it takes place in a school.