New Updates for the 2019-2020 School Year
                                                                                   August 29, 2019
Good morning,

Earlier this year, St. Louis County Children’s Service Fund (CSF) contracted with Ready by 21 St. Louis to begin work on the second phase of a long-term systems-level strategy to develop a comprehensive approach for funding school-based behavioral health services.

The first phase began in the summer of 2017 when CSF began working with Ready by 21 to provide an analysis of CSF-funded school-based services in St. Louis County. Initially, the information from the report  coupled with data from the 2017 Needs Assessment informed funding decisions for 2018-2019 Core.

The second phase of this ongoing engagement is focused on addressing recommendations from the first report including clear communication, effective collaboration, and consistent school-based mental health practices between schools and service providers.

 Over the summer, CSF worked with Ready by 21 and an advisory group of student services administrators and behavioral health agency leaders to develop the 2019 Handbook for School Districts and Funded Agencies . This handbook is part of CSF’s desire to support the alignment of service expectations between districts and agencies and to elevate best practices and highlight opportunities for consistency. This project is part of CSF’s ongoing commitment to ensuring that funded behavioral health services are efficiently and effectively administered and equitably distributed for the children of St. Louis County.

CSF is also supporting the launch of a Professional Learning Network (PLN) for school district teams and behavioral health providers to work together on and learn about issues of shared importance. The PLNs will be hosted at EdPlus and will be facilitated by Ready by 21 St. Louis staff. The group will meet four times throughout the 2019-2020 school year, and each meeting will include a community-building activity, a learning topic, and a discussion on opportunities for collaboration.

We’re excited about what we’ve accomplished together so far and look forward to continued collaboration.

Thank you for your work to ensure the children of St. Louis County are supported and thriving,
Katie Kaufmann, Director, Ready by 21 St. Louis
Emily Koenig, Acting Executive Director, St. Louis County Children’s Service Fund