Fresno Unified School District and Fresno Teachers Association collaborated to provide students with access to 24/7 mental health resources.
Families can now receive support through SimpleConnect.
It's a student and family assistance program at your fingertips.
Jeremy Oswald is the President of SimpleTherapy, which runs SimpleConnect along with multiple other services.
"SimpleConnect is really intending to provide emotional well-being support and life balance resources to help every child and the family be their best," Oswald said.
The program offers a variety of materials, including bite-sized videos for many situations.
It has a 24-7 hotline staffed with licensed behavioral health clinicians.
It also provides assistance to help people track down appointments with a clinician.
"We really created this to take the burden off the member so they can focus on the other things that they need to do, which is making sure they're healthy, feeling good and we're going to handle the administrative burden," Oswald said.
Fresno Unified Director of Student Support Services, Abigail Arii, says students do better in school when they have the support they need.
"That puts them in a better situation to be in a place both emotionally and physically to receive the instruction and be a part of the community we want them to be on our campuses," Arii said.
Families can already access everything available to them, just visit simpleconnectapp.com and enter the code "fusdfamily."
The district has shared details about SimpleConnect on social media and will formally push it out this fall.
Arii says she's grateful students and families will always have access to support, especially during times like summer and winter break.
"Knowing that there is another resource -- not maybe only for our crisis situation, but for any situation that might come up, that's available 24-7 is really a relief," Arii said.
The program is free to students and their families.
The district is paying the student rate of $1.65 per student per month to provide the resource.
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