Bigfork to offer program for emotionally distressed youth

A specialized education program for emotionally distressed youth opened at Bigfork Elementary School early this month. A team of three educators from Intermountain, a nonprofit agency specializing in child and family therapy, will run the day treatment program on campus — a first for the Helena-based company.

The Intermountain staff will include a therapist, teacher and mental health school specialist, who will teach academics as well as social skills over the course of the school day. The program caters to students who may be emotionally disturbed, have experienced some type of abuse, are transitioning into a new family or aren’t able to work well with their peers.

“It’s about a holistic approach for these children,” said Intermountain director of education services Marvin Williams. “The difference with this program is that they get to remain in their home school, but they’re in a classroom that has trained professionals all day long, as opposed to parts of the day.”

Williams said Intermountain is also unique because they don’t wait for behavioral issues to be resolved to begin academic instruction.

“Our belief is, build relationship through academics,” Williams said. “We start academics essentially from Day 1. We’re not waiting for behaviors to stabilize.”

The program also involves family members of participating students in weekly therapy sessions and offers a 24/7 crisis line staffed by Intermountain therapists for needs that may arise outside the classroom.

Bigfork superintendent Matt Jensen said during his tenure as elementary school principal he observed a growing number of students with behavioral needs that were more intensive than the school typically dealt with. But the options for catering to those kids were limited: he could send them to off-site treatment programs, such as Flathead Crossroads Program in Evergreen, but noted there was often a waiting list. Five years ago, Jensen spent a day in Helena to witness Intermountain’s home-base program in action. Back then there weren’t quite enough students in the Bigfork district to justify bringing Intermountain to campus, but over time those numbers changed.

Intermountain’s Bigfork location will serve a maximum of 12 students, depending on their needs, and five are currently enrolled for the 2017/18 school year. Once that number is set in stone, Jensen will offer the remaining spots to neighboring school districts, which could also help spread out the cost.

“We contract with them for the service like we would any other outside provider and we lease them some space in our building,” Jensen said.

The school will pay $80,000 per year for Intermountain’s services, he said.

“If you’re a community member and a taxpayer, I think the message is this is not $80,000 of new money per se — we’ve always had these students,” Jensen explained. “These kids have participated in other programs that we’ve sent these kids to and these programs are $22,000 or $24,000 (per student).”

And because Intermountain is located on campus, the school won’t have to pay to bus students to outside facilities, which can quickly become costly.

“If you’re running a school bus for one or two students a day back and forth to a private placement, that adds up pretty quick,” he said.

INTERMOUNTAIN STUDENTS will begin their day with a centering exercise, such as yoga, to get them in the right state of mind for learning.

“We don’t know what theses kids are coming to school with — what happened the night before or that morning,” said Intermountain teacher Amber Johnston.

They’ll have academic lessons in the morning and a group therapy session in the afternoon.

“We’re going to talk about emotions, feelings, trauma — nothing’s excluded from this program,” said Intermountain therapist Ariane Waller. Waller will also be available to speak with students throughout the day.

Once a week, each student will participate in individual therapy and a family therapy session.

They’ll also share meals together family-style, twice a day, and learn skills such as table manners, personal hygiene, how to read body language and cooking and cleaning.

“A lot of these kids don’t know how to do that,” Johnston said, “and even if the parents have tried to show them, oftentimes the behavior has not allowed them to learn these things appropriately.”

If a student does experience an outburst, they’ll have access to a sensory room which is stocked with a number of items for self-soothing such as a hanging swing, a tent and exercise balls.

One thing instructors are adamant about is that parents won’t be called in to pick up their child for behavioral issues.

“That’s often the norm for a school setting — if a child’s a behavior causes a disruption, the office calls the parents and says hey you’re kids out of control, come get them,” said Intermountain mental health specialist Paul Henry. “That defeats the purpose. In a sense, the child is being rewarded for their negative behavior.”

Once students demonstrate improvement in behavior and social skills, the Intermountain educators will slowly reintegrate them into the larger school population.

“We have treatment plan goals and if they’re meeting them and we’re seeing progress then we’re going to start tiptoeing back into the regular classroom,” Waller said. “We might start with an art class because they love art. We’re not going to start with math if they hate math.”

Jensen said he’s excited to see Intermountain on the Bigfork elementary campus because the program will finally give the school a way to address intense behavioral needs in an efficient way.

“This has been a huge void for us because the needs of these kids have exceeded our ability to help them — and that’s a really challenging problem,” Jensen said. “When a child requires one-on-one attention all day, then it does diminish the capacity of the teacher to work with all the other students in the class. If you’re able to meet these intensive needs through a program like Intermountain, then it benefits not only the kid, but it benefits the entire classroom because now the entire classroom is also being appropriately supported by the classroom teacher.”

Reporter Mackenzie Reiss may be reached at 758-4433 or mreiss@dailyinterlake.com.