ANAHEIM, Calif. \u2014 When single mom Juanita Saenz and her two sons faced homelessness a couple years ago, she says her eldest Joseph had a tough time adjusting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a huge struggle for him to endeavor with everything that was going on, as well as school and really communicating or integrate with his classmates or peers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Fifty-three percent of public schools report increased demand for mental health services<\/p>\n
The Trump administration cut $1 billion in federal youth mental health grants and staff from the Office of Special Education<\/p>\n
Anaheim Elementary School District has recovered $810,000 through state reimbursements via TadHealth<\/p>\n
The district expects to surpass $1 million in reimbursements soon, setting a model for other California schools<\/p>\n
Now housed, the family is rebuilding and for Joseph, everything changed after staff at Loara Elementary in Anaheim recommended counseling. He now meets weekly with a school counselor, support made possible by new state funding.<\/p>\n
A recent survey found that 53% of public schools report increased demand for mental health services, but many say funding still falls short. That gap widened after the Trump administration canceled about $1 billion in federal grants for youth mental health and cut staff at the Office of Special Education, which oversees funding for 7.5 million students with disabilities nationwide.<\/p>\n
School counselor Shanae Prieto says those cuts have real consequences.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of the cuts, all of the changes, especially with our current administration, there\u2019s not the same sense of priority toward mental health,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The Anaheim Elementary School District recently unlocked more than $810,000 in state reimbursements through a partnership with TadHealth, a school-based electronic health record system that helps providers file claims and get paid for the care they already provide.<\/p>\n
\u201cTadHealth coming into the picture has been a really great comfort because it enables our district to count on a secured funding source,\u201d Prieto said.<\/p>\n
For Joseph, that funding means he can keep seeing his counselor \u2014 care his mom says she couldn\u2019t otherwise afford.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis program has helped my son not only understand who he is, but also that he has a voice to speak up for himself,\u201d Saenz said.<\/p>\n
Anaheim Elementary expects to surpass $1 million in reimbursements in the coming weeks, a model that could help schools statewide sustain mental health care for years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANAHEIM, Calif. \u2014 When single mom Juanita Saenz and her two sons faced homelessness a couple years ago,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,16493,16492,7,15,16491,1570,5999,5996],"class_list":{"0":"post-19962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news","11":"tag-app-education","12":"tag-app-health","13":"tag-california","14":"tag-education","15":"tag-genevieve-glass","16":"tag-health","17":"tag-socal-what-you-need-to-know","18":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}