Panhandle Beginnings Day Treatment (PbDTx)
Program Goal:
Panhandle Beginnings is a therapeutic treatment and educational setting that provides an individualized, educational and therapeutic environment which supports social-emotional awareness, and promotes personal growth in a safe, healing environment to help youth reach their full potential. Panhandle Beginnings provides Day Treatment services to youth third-eighth grade who have been identified by the PbDTx multidisciplinary team to have intensive emotional and behavioral diagnoses that adversely impact the child’s daily living skills and ability to participate in the general education curriculum and environment.
Panhandle Beginnings is a service in a continuum of care designed with built-in support of mental health professionals to help youth develop the social and emotional skills necessary to become successful in any academic and social situation and to facilitate movement of the acute mental health and behavioral needs to a status in which they are capable of functioning in the community with less intense support.
Program Overview:
PbDTx is not its own school and serves each school district and student as an extended, off site, intensive ED classroom. The school district, family, student, and PbDTx coordinate with each other to provide the least restrictive academic setting possible. Ongoing monitoring of treatment appropriateness and youth needs are communicated at monthly team meetings. PbDTx serves as a transitional educational placement when students are exiting hospitalizations and/or residential treatment facilities. When the student has made enough progress to be able to consistently maintain safe and appropriate behavior in the classroom/school setting, a transition meeting is scheduled so that the student can return to his/her home school. There are times when PbDTx is not a good fit for the needs of the student. When this happens a transition meeting occurs to establish the best educational placement for the student.