Services > Children

School Based Services   Educational Support Counselor   Prevention Center   Pinocchio

The Educational Support Counselor program provides school based mental health services and is designed to keep at-risk children and youth in school, at home, and out of trouble. Currently, the program provides services through the Meremac Valley, St. Charles City, Wentzville, and Wright City school districts. During FY 2003 the program will utilize counselors who work with students on a year long basis averaging 1,300 individual or group sessions a year. In FY 2002 the Educational Support Counselor Program will involve 497 children and youth and 603 family members.

The Prevention Center will serve over 10,000 area children and youth with prevention programs in a number of areas including: Personal Safety, Teasing & Bullying, Protecting Teens from Sexual Abuse, Attitude Adjustment, and Changes and Choices, a 6-session program dealing with conflict resolution, grief resolution, drug and alcohol abuse prevention, and building healthy relationships. These programs are delivered in elementary and middle schools in throughout the counties served. These programs are designed to reach children and youth at critical periods in their lives and teach them skill-building techniques, which can be learned to divert emerging problems.

The Pinocchio program provides early intervention for Head Start through third grade students who have emerging behavioral or school adjustment problems or an emotionally-based learning problem. This program is currently in 18 schools and Head Start sites screening over 2900 children per year. The children are screened and are provided with an academic year long intervention. Crider Center has recently added an additional dimension to the Pinocchio program through classroom presentations in areas of social skills training, e.g., friendship skills, anger control, and impulse control.