"This is considered a preferable model of care," she says.
Hoover says bringing counselors and psychiatrists into the schools is an effective approach. Children are "suffering from family substance abuse and schools are feeling the burden." "Schools have more kids who cannot access the learning environment," says Sharon Hoover, co-director of The National Center for School Mental Health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. In October, Congress authorized $50 million a year for the next five years to fund mental health services to help school districts treat students who have experienced trauma due to the opioid epidemic.Īnd an increasing number of school districts across the country are starting not only to screen and treat at-risk kids for opioid addiction, but also access mental health counseling specifically for students whose families and communities are consumed by opioid abuse. The counselors work at the schools but are employed by Gosnold, the largest provider of addiction services on the Cape. It's also where a growing number of schools are hiring treatment counselors to work with teachers and their students whose families are battling addiction. The Nadeaus live on Cape Cod, which has some of the highest numbers of deaths due to opioid overdoses in Massachusetts. "That makes it very difficult for her brain to settle down enough to do more than one task at a time," Nadeau says. Nadeau says when they arrived at her home, both girls were anxious and depressed and had a hard time focusing in school - especially Maddy, who had been exposed to drugs in utero. The girls' parents struggled with drug addiction, and for several years, the sisters moved in with different relatives and eventually, foster homes. "Devon would come home from school and fix them cold hot dogs or a bowl of cereal - very simple items that both of them could eat," says Sarah Nadeau, who fostered the girls and later adopted them. My mom just wasn't around at the time," she says.Įvery day, her older sister Devon came home from elementary school and made sure Maddy had something to eat.
"I remember Mom was always locking herself in her room and she didn't take care of me. When Maddy Nadeau was a toddler, her mother wasn't able to care for her. Offering therapy to children in need at school makes sense, says Sarah Nadeau, who adopted two girls from a family that struggled with addiction, because sometimes school is the only stable place they have.
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