Artvango Therapeutic Services Inc

Trauma Informed Counselor for Victims of Crime - Children This project will provide trauma-informed mental health counseling services and expressive art therapy services to youth who are in the foster care system in Bexar County, TX. In January 2023 there were 1,330 youth in the care of DFPS in Bexar County. These youth have a variety of mental health challenges due to the trauma they have endured, including physical assault, sexual assault, abuse/neglect, bullying, and in some cases, human trafficking. In order for youth to be able to begin healing from their trauma, it is imperative they see trauma-informed counselors who can guide them through making sense of the trauma, give them strategies to cope with the trauma, the separation from their families, and the new foster families they have joined. Absent trauma-informed counseling, youth in foster care who are victims of abuse and neglect are at a higher risk for long term negative physical, psychological, medical, behavioral, and societal outcomes. These outcomes can include teen pregnancy, increased use of alcohol and drugs, suicidal ideations, and social adjustment issues. The negative outcomes can have repercussions their whole life, effect how they raise their children, and determine whether the cycle of abuse will continue to the next generation.

City of San Antonio, American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) COVID-19 IMPACT AREAS to address the increased social isolation, anxiety, depression, and suicide in school age youth and increase access to mental health care for school-aged children and youth ages 12-19 years old. Artvango's main objective is to increase our psycho-therapy program activities and ability to increase staff will impact the targeted community by providing an opportunity for us to decrease the wait time for services and increase the number of youths we can serve. This will help reduce wait times for initial and critically needed services. Our program links to the targeted impact area by expanding access to mental health care for children and youth ages 2-19 with an equity access score of 6 or above who are already at a high risk of hospitalization and suicidal ideation given their status in the foster care system. Enabling foster youth to access care in a timely manner with no wait times will greatly improve their mental health outcomes, the success of their placements, and the negative consequences that can come from waiting for critically needed mental health care that has been described above. Counseling fees will be collected through insurance when applicable. LPC-Associates who are not fully licensed by the state of TX are not able to submit charges for insurance reimbursement. COSA funding will alleviate the financial cost of increasing our staff in order to serve the large number of youths affected by trauma, abuse and neglect.