Program Update - Bilingual Therapy in Kennett Square

Family Service of Chester County has long established our roots as an organization that provides life-changing individual and family support regardless of barriers to access. In line with our mission, we are excited to announce that, as of the 2021 academic year, we are partnering with Kennett Consolidated School District (KCSD) to introduce a new network of therapeutic support services to students across Kennett Square.  This blog post will be a series interviewing the different therapists and their experiences so far.

One of five newly hired bilingual family therapists will be placed within each Kennett Square school district to promote the social and emotional wellbeing of K-12 students. Thanks to KCSD’s multi-tiered support system, new members of the FSSC family will act as Mental Health Support Specialists, a tier 4 level of support, alongside a pre-established team of mental health professionals already operating within each school. By adding an additional tier of support services, we hope to be able to reach a wider population of students and families - especially our local immigrant families who previously may not have been able to access therapeutic services due to linguistic and cultural barriers. 

We believe in creating authentic connections and believe in leveraging those connections to help more people. Often times schools are the most trusted institutions that Spanish-speaking and undocumented families come into contact with. By receiving referrals to our counselors from within their schools, this automatically creates a deeper level of trust than if these individuals came to us through another route. We look forward to strengthening our relationship with The Kennett Consolidated School District as a trusted referral source through this partnership. 

Kevn Hayes, MSS, LCSW - Director of FSCC Counseling Program 

“Our goals with our partnership with the Kennett Square Consolidated District is to not only increase accessibility to therapy services by putting therapists within the school communities, but to also increase culturally appropriate services by providing bilingual counseling. The seeds of this partnership were planted last year, when Emilee Duckworth, MSS, LSW, reflected on the wonderful experience she had working with the KSCD. Through this connection, Dr. Heather Collins (Director of Human Services and Supports) advocated for FSCC to partner with the district on a more extensive basis. Through her advocacy, we were able to place five bilingual therapists in each KSCD school on a full-time basis, thus joining the growing movement to integrate therapeutic support into educational settings. We hope, throughout this endeavor, to serve as a model for future, similar integrations.”