New partnership to extend mental health services for students across Massachusetts

SALEM, Mass — A new partnership will rapidly extend mental health services to students across Massachusetts.

This initiative will allow students to connect one-on-one with licensed therapists for several weeks or even months at a time at no cost to the students.

Salem Public Schools is just one of a dozen districts signing up for the new services.

“More and more students are coming forward and families are coming forward saying, I need help or my child needs help, and I see that as progress, but we have to be able to support them,” said Dr. Stephen Zrike, superintendent of Salem Public Schools.

Dr. Zrike says there’s been a huge demand for mental health services among students especially after the pandemic.

“They need to be in a place where they can truly make themselves available and if there are other things going on for them, if their mental health needs are not being met, it’s very hard to learn,” said Dr. Zrike.

The problem, he says, is there’s a long waitlist for kids to even see a therapist, along with barriers from transportation issues to language differences.

“Post covid there’s an urgency that we just really needed to be able to partner with community organizations to provide not just access, but rapid, quick service,” said Ellen Wingard, executive director of Student Support Services in Salem.

Salem Public Schools just partnered with Cartwheel Care and the Brookline Center to provide rapid mental health services for students, all covered by insurance or through the program’s funding.

“We’re seeing increases in symptoms of anxiety and depression,” said Wingard.

Under the new partnership, students will be connected with a licensed therapist through Cartwheel within a week, and they can continue those hour-long telehealth sessions weekly for two to four months or even longer if necessary.

“So at Cartwheel we see ourselves really as an extension of the school-based team,” said Joe English, co-founder of Cartwheel.

English says school guidance counselors provide the bulk of support for students, but there are so many needs outside of school that their therapists can address.

“There’s a need for additional types of licenses or skillsets to be able to meet the full need, being able to diagnose, to deliver certain types of evidence-based treatment, being able to provide medication that’s appropriate,” said English.

The new services will be available to about 100 Salem students this school year, and within the first couple weeks, 68 students have already signed up.

“This really comes out of a lot of different voices saying what we’re doing right now is just not enough, we got to figure something else out,” said Wingard.

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