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Haverhill school administrators are scrambling to determine what services families may need as they learned Beth Israel Lahey Health Community Behavioral Health Center will soon close its outpatient clinic here.
Director of Guidance Counseling and Student Support Services Jami Dion recently told the School Committee she learned of the closing after having a conversation with Lahey on Sept. 23.
“This information is new and I’m sure that plans will evolve and change over the coming weeks and months and I can provide updates as I get them,” she said.
Dion said she will have biweekly meetings with Lahey between September and “the next few months.”
Though the outpatient clinic is slated to close at the end of the month, she said, it will not impact all services the center provides. “It doesn’t impact the community service agencies, the CSAs, those are the wrap-around service model of care that supports families. But it does impact things like school-based counseling services or other counseling services provided by clinicians,” she explained.
Dion added Lahey will also continue to provide school-based counseling services through the end of the calendar year. After that, she said, they’ll refer families to other organizations and other supports to take over long-term care.
“Any families who are receiving counseling services outside of the schools, from what I understand, those services would most likely end in October, but any students who are receiving services within the schools, that would continue through December,” she said.
Dion said Haverhill schools “would not necessarily know” what students are receiving services outside of the schools due to federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act—or HIPPA—protections. She said school counselors have met and discussed what additional services, if any, they could take on to support students.
“We are thinking through how as counselors we can provide additional supports to students during the span of the school day, what that could look like, what that should look like as students are transitioning from one counselor to another,” she said.
School Committee Member Richard J. Rosa questioned why Lahey had made the choice to leave the city. He told WHAV separately he is concerned the state may not be reimbursing health vendors well enough. He suggested there may be additional impacts.
“I know that you know [Dion] that there are, even with Lahey here, there are a lot of families on a waitlist to get their child mental health services and I can only imagine the waitlists will get longer when they leave,” Rosa said.
Mayor Melinda E. Barrett said her office is in touch with the state and will assist in “any way possible.”