NORWICH – The Norwich City School District is taking initiative to have specialized behavioral health services in all four of its schools by September.

The district is working with Chenango County Behavioral Health Services to make treatment from full-time licensed social workers available in the Norwich middle and high schools, Gibson Primary School, and Perry Browne Intermediate School for the 2016-2017 school year. Embedded Behavioral Health Services satellite clinics would go above and beyond the services that are already offered by school guidance counselors and social works.

Unlike school counselors, Behavioral Health Services operates under the auspices of a licensed outpatient clinic. This means kids will have access to more intensive treatment options.

So what’s the drawback? The proposal requires two newly created social worker positions to operate the clinic, and that comes with a nearly $200,000 annual price tag for county taxpayers. Money paid out would be recouped by billing Medicaid and insurance providers for rendered services.

According to Behavioral Health Services Director Ruth Roberts, the initiative could go a long way in preventing mental health issues among youth from becoming more serious issues in adulthood. Moreover, it may eventually slow the demand for services for adults in the Norwich area.

“I continue to be very concerned about the high percentage of individuals who are considered to be disabled in Chenango County, and that number continues to rise,” said Roberts. “I’m concerned about what we see coming into our adult clinic. When we start looking at it and examining it, in many situations, it’s preventable if the condition had been identified early and treated at an early age.”

Behavioral Health Services already has similar satellite clinics using existing staff in the Oxford and Otselic Valley school districts. The intent of school-based clinics is simple – to reach kids at a young age in order to prevent more serious behavioral health issues when they’re older. The key is to be proactive, said Roberts.

“I believe that early identification, detection, and intervention is a way of slowing down the trend of issues we’re seeing come into the adult clinic, and it’s also a way to improve the condition of children and families,” she added.

Chenango County is well below the New York State average in terms of behavioral health issues, said Roberts. By the numbers in Chenango County:

• 34 percent of adult females are diagnosed with a disability (compared to the 14 percent state average)