Helping New Britain Students and Families Thrive

New behavioral health services at DiLoreto Elementary & Middle School

Wheeler is expanding behavioral health services to students and families at DiLoreto Elementary & Middle School in New Britain, as well as providing linkages to accessible health care at Wheeler’s Family Health & Wellness Center in the city.

Wheeler's school-based behavioral health clinics employ a national cognitive behavioral intervention model to help students address trauma-related issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and behavioral health issues, and provide other evidence-based interventions to address an array of problems, including anxiety, depression, academic and peer challenges, and more. Linkage to other services in the community, including assistance with SNAP enrollment and connections with primary care at Wheeler's Family Health & Wellness Center at 40 Hart Street, New Britain, and a broad continuum of outpatient and community-based levels of care, also are provided.

Clinician Brenda Buzzi, LMSW, is on-site at DiLoreto Monday through Friday during and after school hours. Her referrals come from school staff like teachers and the school nurse, as well as parents directly, and she also sees some children who are already receiving health care at Wheeler’s health center.

“There is such a great need for the work we do in our schools,” she says. “It is wonderful to provide services for children whose families perhaps have barriers getting to care otherwise, and it is very rewarding to make a difference in their lives.”

Wheeler also operates more than a dozen school-based behavioral health clinics in the Bristol public schools, which have seen a significant increase in requests for service, particularly compared to before the pandemic, which reflects national trends.

Heather Arduini, LMFT, Wheeler’s behavioral health director in the New Britain Family Health & Wellness Center, says that the school-based approach to behavioral health care improves attendance, school performance, and addresses the stresses that children experience.

“Parents and teachers tell us often that children today are struggling with stressors that many of us never did in our childhood, from social media, to fears of violence, to peer pressure, to the challenges that families feel from the world today,” she says. “The quicker we can help a child and their family, the better they can develop the assets they have inside them, and sooner they can start to thrive.”

Services are reimbursed by private and public insurance, and are available regardless of a family’s ability to pay.

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