Adversity is not a life sentence.
Adversity happens. We cannot predict, nor prevent, all challenges that a person will experience. We can, however, give them the tools to navigate life’s challenges. Especially in communities where adversity is systemic - think poverty, racism, disenfranchisement, marginalized, resource-starved - we cannot continue to slap a band-aid on the issue by treating the most vulnerable after crisis occurs.
Students, Families, and Educators
We provide three tiers of care for for three core populations in a school community. Instead of waiting for crisis to occur, we work with schools to understand the core issues that impact their communities. We create systems to address these core issues while simultaneously folding in preventative care to reduce the core issues in the long term.
Prevention is Key.
Children are created by their environments. Therefore, the burden of healing the system is not on students. We engage with educators and families in order to create a cultural shift within the school community.
Responsive Programming.
We work with existing programs to fill in the gaps of care. Have SEL needs? We got you. Need educator support and training on how to handle mental health situations with students? We’re on that too. Have families, staff, or students that need 1:1 care? Look no further.
Explore the tiers below!
In public health models, Tier One is Universal Prevention. Here’s how we implement broad-based, preventive strategies for everyone.
Preventative Care for the Whole Community
Targeted Prevention in Small Groups
Tier Two services look to provide support for people based on issue-specific plans. This small group approach provide additional support to prevent the escalation of challenges.
Tier Three care is for individuals who are experiencing specific challenges. They receive personalized intervention + prevention plans.
Individualized Care for Community
Supporting Our Students:
Social Emotional Learning
Social Emotional Learning is not just a fancy buzz word we slap on to get funding and buy-in. The Preventative framework we use centers in-classroom, clinician-led group work. SEL is the foundation for systemic change.
Why? Our current medical model is a crisis response system. A situation happens, and we react with services and treatment plans. Any clinician who has worked in county mental health will tell you, this is how you get burnt out. Crisis response doesn’t solve the root cause of the problem. It stabilizes a singular situation.
Tier 1: Social Emotional Learning deployed in classrooms by trained facilitators and clinicians
Tier 2: Small Groups supporting issue-specific challenges like anger, grief and loss, and executive functioning
Tier 3: 1:1 support for student who need it
The BRIDGE Model: Prevention Work must happen hand-in-hand with all other tiers of care. Prevention changes long-term outcomes for communities as a whole. Our evidence-based curriculum was designed by clinicians, providers, and experts in the fields of mental health, nutrition, physical therapy, movement, substance use recovery, and education. Our lessons include movement, mindfulness, skill-building, psychoeducation, and processing. Educators receive digital and in-person support to continue this work beyond the time when clinicians are in the classroom.
Educator Support
Educators are critical to creating and upholding culture on a school campus. On a systemic level, educators are asked to do so much. We ask them to care for, educate, advocate, and support our kiddos. We ask for miracles.
And, what happen when educators are burnt out and overwhelmed? What happens when we put kiddos into an environment where the adults are stressed out, burnt out, overwhelmed, and feeling like they have no resources?
Tier 1: resources for Educators use the 6 Pillars of Lifestyle Medicine to create a better baseline for self care.
Tier 2: focused group work to support self and students in social and emotional work.
Tier 3: 1:1 support for educators who need it.
Empowering Families
Students spend the majority of their time in two environments: at school and with their family.
Raising a child is a community effort and yet the community resources are not available. At the BRIDGE, we help the school become a place of safety for all by collaborating with schools to provide resources to families. We empower families with the same skills and tools that are provided to the classroom. This creates a shared language, experience, and accountability.
Tier 1: Digital Resources to support health and well being for the whole family
Tier 2: Small Group Parenting Classes focusing on a number of different issues from nutrition to healthy technology use
Tier 3: 1:1 support for families who need it
Frequently Asked Questions
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Matrix of Care is our proprietary programming that offers preventative, at-risk, and interventive care to entire school communities. We created a menu of services to help bridge the gaps of support that exist within a school. Our goal is to provide holistic care for communities that do not have access to mental health resources.
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When we look at the effects of Adverse Childhood experiences and trauma in childhood, one thing is clear: unmitigated adversity has negative affects on individuals both in the short and the long term. Time and time again, follow up studies on ACEs show us that without support, students are more likely to experience mental health issues, educational disengagement, physical health issues, and safety issues.
We can continue to do what systems have done since their institution - treat the crisis after it happens - or we can envision a new standard for community care. We did the ladder.
Prevention work at the group and individual level ensures that when the community meets inevitable challenges, they will have the resources to navigate. This is how we change outcomes. This is how we change lives.
The current system and medical model is giving us the results it was designed to produce. Wellness requires a systems shift. Wellness requires all of us.
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Like MTSS and all public health models, we break up care into three tiers: prevention, at risk, and individual support. Many programs place importance on the individual support without building up the programs that reduce the need for individual work.
For each population, the tiers look different.
Students in Tier One receive weekly SEL push-ins. Think Mental Health Ed. Educators and Families have access to our full suite of digital programming that helps to reinforce what we teach students.
Tier 2 might included family and parenting classes. For educators it may look like Mental Health Frontline Responder Training.
Tier 3 includes all of the 1:1 services that we offer.
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