Napa Valley Register
September 8, 2020
Earlier this year the Boys & Girls Clubs of St. Helena and Calistoga identified a need in their Teen Clubs for extended mental health services. At the onset of shelter-in-place and the resulting closures we redirected programs and used the changes to ask ourselves what more our teens need and how we can help. For the past few months we have hosted virtual college tours, community forums, graduation gift deliveries, and more.
During that time, the Teen Center was also rewarded with Boys & Girls Clubs Merit Award for programming excellence. This award is given to the top teen program in the nation.
All the while, we recognized that now more than ever our communities and our kids needed more mental health resources. An initial conversation with Mentis of Napa led us to believe that we could successfully provide remote counseling sessions to teens until regulations allowed us to expand on how we offered services.
After a bit of planning and logistical work, The Boys & Girls Clubs of St. Helena and Calistoga is proud to announce a partnership with Mentis Napa to provide free therapy services to our teens in both Calistoga and St. Helena.
Recently, teens were invited to a meet-and-greet zoom session with a Mentis counselor, not only to introduce himself, but to talk about his career path in the mental health field.
The staff of The Club and Mentis made the process easy for teens. Currently, Teen Center staff will refer teens in need, or help teens refer themselves to meet with Mentis’s counselor weekly. Sessions are currently taking place remotely and we hope that in the near future we will have the opportunity to bring in the counselor to take part in our programs on site and meet in person.
For more information on these free services please contact Anton Parisi, anton@bgchsc.org<mailto:anton@bgchsc.org> (Calistoga), or Julian Frayre, julian@bgcshc.org<mailto:julian@bgcshc.org> (St. Helena).
Anton Parisi is the Unit Director for the Calistoga Teen Center.
The Weekly Calistogan, Anton Parisi Calistoga Teen Center, Sep. 8 2020