San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced Friday that the city is providing new mental health resources for students and their families as schools remain closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The city is expanding its Mobile Response Team, which provides mental health and wellness services to young people, to serve San Francisco Unified School District students.
“The lack of in-person learning is having a major impact on our students,” tweeted Mayor Breed. “We need to safely reopen our schools -- until then we'll keep doing everything we can to help.”
Since schools closed last March, many of the city’s students have been unable to access in-person counseling that is normally available on campus.
According to the city, SFUSD has made 118,000 virtual wellness check calls since last spring.
Of those families reached, 77 percent of families shared they were doing “pretty good” or “great,” but about one in four families were not, officials said.
“For all of us, this has been a hard year on our mental health,” said Mayor Breed. “But for young people who were already dealing with a lot of stress and mental health challenges before the pandemic, this year has been especially challenging.”
The expansion of the MRT will help the district reach those who would benefit from in-person mental health support.
When a child is referred to the program, the MRT staff can respond with a range of services, including crisis prevention, counseling and coordinating the young person’s mental health care.
The program started in 2019, providing services to families with youth involved in the child welfare services of the Human Services Agency or involved with the Juvenile Probation Department.
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