Bridges for Education and Medicine Program
Services for Educators

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Offering a full range of counseling and behavioral health services for schools

Our Services
The Bridges for Education and Medicine Program is a service of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, part of UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside.Our services are provided in elementary, middle, and high schools. We can improve the learning environment by providing a variety of services for students, such as anger management, social skills building, and conflict resolution. We foster a team atmosphere, working with teachers, parents, and other specialized professionals to maximize positive results for the student.

The Bridges program also offers outpatient counseling services in pediatric offices. Our staff work collaboratively with a child’s primary care team, so they are able to deliver multiple levels of care to address emotional and behavioral problems.

We offer:

• Psychosocial assessment: The assessment is used to design the best possible strategies to help a child who is experiencing difficulties. It also helps to identify known risk factors associated with more intensive behavioral health problems.

• Psychoeducational activities: These activities teach awareness and provide information about a variety of problems affecting students, such as grieving the loss of a loved one, being preoccupied with thoughts of a difficult home situation, or needing help managing interpersonal relationships. Examples of psychoeducational activities could include engaging students in problem-solving exercises or role-playing scenarios.

• Behavioral interventions: These are detailed plans to influence behavior in a positive way. Behavioral interventions may be implemented for a particular student, or a larger group, like an entire class. Interventions for large groups typically focus on certain topics, like bullying or stress management. Interventions for a particular student’s behavior are developed by the counselor and are implemented by the counselor, teacher, and student.
  

Our Staff
The Bridges staff comprises professional counselors who hold a bachelor’s degree in psychology or have master’s-level training, such as licensed professional counselors or social workers.

Our counselors provide direct support to students through psychoeducation and prevention counseling in the classroom, an individual session, or group setting. While in the school, our clinicians spend about 75 percent of their time providing counseling services to students. The rest of their time is spent collaborating with teachers, contacting parents, preparing classroom presentations, designing group activities, creating individual behavior plans, and facilitating referrals to additional services.

How the Program Works
Teachers or other school personnel complete a referral form for students whom they think may benefit from our services. Our staff member contacts the student’s parents and obtains consent for services. After this is obtained, a psychosocial assessment is completed to determine strategies for helping the child.

Benefits for teachers and schools:

• Our philosophy centers on close collaboration with teachers. Our counselors work with teachers on behavior plans to track and record behavior and consequences.
• Teachers may choose to attend training sessions on behavioral health topics.
• Teachers have the opportunity to complete a teacher satisfaction survey and to provide feedback on students’ progress.
• The Bridges counselor provides a comprehensive, year-end report to the school, describing the total number of students served and gains made in areas of difficulty.
  

A True Value
The cost of the Bridges program depends on the number of hours of service that are provided. Typically, our program provides services to many children in a school district, making the cost per student quite low, especially when compared to other specialized services. In fact, the cost of Bridges services for one year is often significantly less than one alternative placement for a student.

The true value of the Bridges program is apparent in the results of our work: Children who are having difficulties get the help they need, and school personnel feel empowered to handle difficult students and situations.

Referrals to this program can be made by pediatricians and school personnel. For more information, contact the Bridges for Education and Medicine program or Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic.