What’s Happening in Rappahannock?
What’s Happening in Rappahannock?
For about five decades, our organization focused solely on implementing behavioral health initiatives in Fauquier County. Then, in 2014, the members of the Mental Health Association elected to include Rappahannock County in our service footprint. Rappahannock is home to a little over 7,000 individuals and offers very few mental health and substance use resources. While many of our efforts focus on Fauquier and Rappahannock together, we wanted to highlight some of the unique things that are happening in Rappahannock County.
Rappahannock Behavioral Health Roundtable
The Mental Health Association is thrilled to provide facilitation and leadership of the Rappahannock Behavioral Health Roundtable. This group consists of 25+ community leaders working together to increase the mental health and addiction supports available to community members.
Some of the areas we’re focusing on include:
1. Promoting awareness of existing resources such as the services Rappahannock Rapidan Community Services provides to community members.
2. Increase availability of behavioral health resources in Rappahannock such as: increasing the number of mental health and/or substance use providers in the County, securing office space for providers, increasing the availability of mental health services for children, increasing services that keep families together, and increasing the number of substance use treatment supports.
3. Collecting data on local behavioral health needs to better assess the services and
resources needed in Rappahannock specifically.
Work with Rappahannock County Public Schools
Here are just a few of the initiatives we’ve partnered with RCPS on over the years:
- In 2021, we donated mental wellness books to the RCES & RCHS libraries as part of PATH’s Let’s Volunteer Day initiative.
- In 2020, we provided a $1,000 grant to RCPS to purchase books for all staff members on trauma-informed practices.
- Trained all school staff in Youth Mental Health First Aid in 2015 and continue to offer training to new school staff every year.
- Worked with RCPS to carry out the PRIDE Survey to assess local trends of substance use and mental health issues and presented those findings to the Rappahannock County School Board members as well as the Board of Supervisors.
Advocacy for School Social Work Position
In 2019, our organization along with countless other community members, advocated for Rappahannock County Public Schools’ first-ever school social work position. We encouraged the local School Board members as well as the Board of Supervisors to include this valuable position in the 2019-2020 budget. Through collaboration, our efforts paid off. RCPS was able to hire their first school social worker, Kathy Sickler, in 2019! We’ve been fortunate to work with Kathy on various initiatives and are so glad to have her as part of our community!