Fremont City Council Meeting: 06/18/24 07:00 PM
3300 Capitol Avenue Div/Dept: Human Services Department Fremont, CA 94538 Category: Agreements and Contracts
SCHEDULED
Sponsors:
COUNCIL STAFF REPORT (ID # 5186) DOC ID: 5186
Updated: 6/12/2024 1:00 PM by Dina Lewis Page 1
TASK ORDER HSD-19 TO FUSD JOINT POWERS AGREEMENT - Authorization to Execute a Task Order to the Joint Powers Agreement with Fremont Unified School District. Task Order HSD-19 for the Provision of Mental Health Services at Four Fremont Unified School District School Wellness Centers for the FY 24-25 School Year, and Make Findings of CEQA Exemption.
Contact Persons:
Name: Annie Bailey Suzanne Shenfil
Title: Youth and Family Services
Administrator
Director
Div/Dept: Human Services Department Human Services Department Phone: 510-574-2111 510-574-2051
E-Mail: [email protected] [email protected]
Executive Summary: Fremont Unified School District (FUSD) has requested the City’s Youth and Family Services (YFS) Division of the Human Services Department (HSD) to continue its partnership with FUSD to provide mental health services at Wellness Centers located at High and Middle Schools.
The purpose of this report is to recommend that the City Council approve and authorize the City Manager to execute a FY 2024/25 Task Order (HSD-19) with FUSD, to provide these services, in the amount of $466,491, under the existing Joint Powers Agreement (JPA).
BACKGROUND: For many years, the City of Fremont Human Services Department’s (HSD) Youth and Family Services Division (YFS) has provided a variety of behavioral healthcare (mental health and substance use counseling), youth diversion and family support services to FUSD. The City and FUSD have an existing JPA, which acknowledges these services and allows for additional implementing task orders.
School students across the country are struggling with mental health problems. Recent studies and news reports indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated an already growing crisis in youth mental health. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), children’s mental health problems started increasing early in the pandemic and by the fall of 2020 had reached a crisis level. With the return of students to in-person learning over the past three school years, referrals to the City’s YFS Healthy Choices school-based counseling program and YFS clinic have increased.
To address the increasing need of students for mental health services, FUSD created a Wellness Center on each high school campus and some middle school campuses. Wellness Centers are an innovative approach to dealing with issues of student stress and anxiety .
They offer overwhelmed students a warm and friendly place to relax and refocus, practice healthy coping mechanisms, or talk to a mental health provider. Wellness Centers may also reduce the need for intensive care; and may help to prevent emerging crisis situations by providing screening, as well as individual and group counseling to prevent and intervene early.
Council Staff Report (ID # 5186) Meeting of June 18, 2024 Updated: 6/12/2024 1:00 PM by Dina Lewis Page 2
In FY 2023/24, HSD was awarded funding from FUSD to staff three High School Wellness Centers and two middle schools. FUSD is now asking HSD to provide staff to offer these services again throughout the 2024-2025 school year at four Wellness Centers.
DISCUSSION/ANALYSIS: The expansion of on-campus mental health services at High and Middle School Wellness Centers gives HSD a unique opportunity to increase the number of students served each year and provide a more consistent and integrated service delivery model for the high schools, which will result in positive mental health and academic outcomes for students.
Under Task Order No. HSD-19, in FY 2024/25, HSD will provide:
• Individual and group mental health services,
• Collateral services, including family engagement and staff consultation, • Crisis intervention and consultation for identified students, as needed, • Participation in Coordination of Services (COS) Team meetings; Student Study Teams, 504 Plans, and Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meetings, • Development of student care plans, and
• Close collaboration with FUSD school site Outreach Coordinators. •
FISCAL IMPACT: There is no fiscal impact to the General Fund. Task Order HSD-19 provides $466,491 in funding, which will cover the cost of compensating four temporary .75 FTE post-graduate Counseling Associates to work 40 hours per week during the school year, and a .30 FTE Clinical Supervisor to provide legally required supervision and oversight. The task order will also cover information technology services, auto, insurance, and overhead costs. As part of the FY 2024/25 Adopted Operating Budget, the City Council appropriated sufficient funding for this program.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW: Approval of the task order is exempt from, and not subject to review under, without limitation, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) per CEQA Guidelines sections 15378(b)(2), (4) & (5), and/or 15061(b)(3), as they are administrative or fiscal activities for which as it can be seen with certainty that there is no possibility that the authorized activities may have a significant effect on the environment. Each of the foregoing provides a separate and independent basis for CEQA exemption.
ATTACHMENTS: None.
RECOMMENDATION: Authorize the City Manager, or her designee, to execute Task Order HSD-19 to the Joint Powers Agreement with Fremont Unified School District, in an amount not to exceed $466,491, for the Youth and Family Services Division of the Human Services Department to provide school-based Wellness Center mental health services for the 2024- 2025 school year and making findings of CEQA exemption.