In a tight budget year, D.C. school leaders, parents and advocates fear a double whammy of cuts is on the way for mental health services for students.
Mayor Muriel Bowser is proposing a major shift for school-based behavioral health services: she wants to phase out the city’s contracts with a network of community-based organizations providing clinicians to schools and bring those functions under a city agency.
At the same time, she hopes to end a long-running contract with Catholic Charities DC to provide a mental health crisis response team, which primarily serves schools, a year after working to slash its budget. Similarly, Bowser plans to rely on the city’s Department of Behavioral Health to offer those services instead…