The mission of the Educational Psychologist team is to provide evidenced based, "best practice" in our service delivery while enhancing access to community based mental health services thus removing the barriers between education and health services agencies.  A multidisciplinary team approach encourages the focus on the "whole person" by supporting and addressing the development of each student's unique potential while mastering the skills needed for successful transition from cradle to college to career. Multi-agency collaboration and coordinated support services  removes the "silos" which have traditionally closed doors to necessary resources and services 

and provides advocacy "navigating the system of care."

Psycho-educational Assessment  Preschool through Adult

Transition Assessment for Postsecondary Planning

  Transition Education and Services for "Life After High School"

    Multi-agency Collaboration and Consultation

      Advocacy

       Community Based Instruction/Coaching

        Tutoring/Study Skills/ Executive Function Skills Development

         Life Skills/ Independent Living Skills

          Mobility Training Resources

         

Educationally Related Mental Health Services (ERMHS)

    Individual and Group Counseling

     Social Skills/Self-regulation

      Anger Replacement Therapy

       Parent Education

     

The Mission of Healing Pathways Medical Clinic

MISSION STATEMENT FOR HEALING PATHWAYS MEDICAL CLINIC

The mission of Healing Pathways Medical Clinic is to provide comprehensive, state of the art evidence based mental health and psychiatric services to children, adolescents, and adults with an emphasis on Exceptional Children Services and those children and adults with developmental disabilities suffering from a mental health condition . We accomplish this by working collaboratively with in house staff as well as independent contractors within the clinic and any necessary outside agencies or other practitioners involved in the care of the individual.   We utilize all tools available in today’s world including  all major psychotherapies, family therapy,  careful use of medications, and the time honored and proven healing traditions such as yoga.

In children and adolescents, it is essential to integrate appropriate special education treatment recommendations in a collaborative fashion with educational specialists within the child’s school district.  Independent Educational Evaluations and legal advocacy are sometimes necessary as well.

We believe that our practice environment is essential. The clinic operates in a trusting, optimistic, upbeat environment where patient confidentiality is of the utmost importance.

Finally, we believe in the natural power of the individual to grow in their personal evolution of consciousness given appropriate levels of treatment and intervention, and we are committed to promoting this process in our patients.

Psychiatric Consultation for Programs Dealing with Education Related Mental Health Services

With the passage of Assembly Bill 114 and the many changes that have taken place for the provision and delivery of mental health services it is now the responsibility of educational systems to manage the many complex issues that can impair a student's ability to learn and therefore received a proper education in the least restrictive setting.

Now school districts are placed with the onerous tasks of providing mental health services to children and adolescents that have complex psychiatric disturbances that can impair their ability to have the benefit of a free and appropriate public education.

Although many legal experts have weighed in on this issue, the abundance of opinion suggests that school districts need to continue with services equivalent to those children and adolescents were receiving through the county mental health care delivery system. One of the many services that were provided included diagnostic evaluation, psychiatric consultation, and at times, the  appropriate prescription and monitoring of psychotropic medications.

With the return to public campuses many students previously managed in intense milieus found in a non-public school setting, psychiatric support is fundamental and essential to these children’s successful transition to a less restrictive setting.

Many school districts have chosen to continue with psychiatric consultation and mental health therapy.  Some school districts that currently include this service are San Juan unified school district, Elk Grove, and lodi. School districts that currently offer education related mental health services include Bonita Unified, culver City Unified,  Glenn County, Kern County, Los ‘Angeles County of Education, and the list goes on.

Including this service with therapies that focus on education related mental health issues allows for comprehensive patient care, depth of skill set, and additional security medico-legally and will provide the necessary support to ensure the children in the school districts meet the expectations of their IEP and will allow them to receive a free and appropriate public education.

Having such a service, psychiatric consultation, proves highly cost-effective, risk reducing, diminishes lost attendance days, and reduces the number of students that require placement in a higher level of care.

It is also the right thing to do for the children that we serve that have special needs.