Summary
Alliance for Inclusion and Prevention, a local child mental health agency, along with the Boston Public Schools and several other urban community service agencies, have joined together to develop Connecting With Care, a school-based, collaborative, community-wide program that provides mental health and other support services to students and their families living in neighborhoods plagued by poverty and crime. Connecting With Care is designed to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in mental health status and treatment by focusing on students (and their families) who are adversely affected by ongoing exposure to trauma. The program has enhanced access to needed mental health services in a population that has limited means of accessing such services. An evaluation of the program’s impact is currently in process.