Ensuring Sustainability for Your Hope Center’s School-Based Services
Your Hope Center has experienced monumental growth during its six-year span. Thanks to the generous support of Vail Health Foundation benefactors, Vail Health support, and governmental grants. Your Hope Center provides school-based clinical services for every elementary, middle, and high school within the Eagle County School District.
Launching these services in 2018 required a collaborative financial model to jumpstart the program. Six years later, new state regulatory changes have been implemented that impact how Your Hope Center’s school-based services are offered, paving the way for more long-term sustainable funding. To ensure continued access to clinical services during the school day, Vail Health and Vail Health Behavioral Health are partnering with Your Hope Center to bill commercial health insurance for school-based clinical services starting in the 2024-25 school year. Your Hope Center has already been billing Medicaid for these services for the past two years. Parents with commercial insurance will receive a bill from Vail Health if their student participates in school-based clinical services and the family has a copay or deductible. For families needing financial assistance or those who lack health insurance, Olivia’s Fund is available to help.
Your Hope Center clinicians play a vital role in addressing the rising social-emotional challenges facing children and teens. By providing therapeutic clinical services conveniently located in schools, they work alongside teachers, administrators, and school counselors to offer individual and group counseling sessions during the school day. This approach removes scheduling and transportation barriers while reducing the stigma associated with receiving mental health support.
The estimated cost of providing school-based clinical services during the 2023-24 school year was $1.7 million. Billing commercial insurance will provide much-needed funding to sustain and potentially expand these crucial outpatient clinical services. Vail Health is committed to partnering with Your Hope Center to ensure these vital in-school behavioral health services remain accessible to all students.
Many generous benefactors have supported and continue to support Your Hope Center’s school-based program and Vail Health Behavioral Health’s Olivia’s Fund. Their contributions ensure that financial barriers do not prevent students and families from receiving necessary mental health support. Olivia’s Fund helps ensure that all students, regardless of their financial situation, can access the mental health services they need to thrive.
