APSB adds omitted service provider to school-based mental health program

   When the Avoyelles School Board adopted a plan to provide mental health services in the school, one service provider in the parish was omitted.

   At the Oct. 4 meeting, the board voted 8-1 to put Exceptional Counseling Services of Bunkie back into the rotation of mental health/behavioral health companies serving students in the schools.

  ECS owner Brenda Sampson asked board members why her company was left off the list of providers in the schools. She was told that the company had not responded to the board’s request for information. Board members said they thought Sampson had withdrawn her business from the multi-agency program.

  The omission of Sampson’s company was especially unusual since the plan adopted was created largely with her input, Sampson told board members. She served as spokeswoman for the private mental health providers in the parish that had banded together to oppose the possibility of another mental health provider being allowed to open an on-campus clinic.

   “I worked on the plan from its early inception,” Sampson said. “In fact, I was the person who made the initial proposal on behalf of the agencies to the board. Unfortunately, when plans were being finalized, I was dealing with my only sibling’s terminal illness and death.”

   After a long discussion on the matter, the board voted to put ECS back in the behavioral health plan, effective Dec. 1. The plan for October and November is already in place and cannot be altered, Special Education Supervisor Karen Williams said.

   Board member Mike Lacombe was the only “No” vote on the issue.

   Sampson said she met with Superintendent Blaine Dauzat in August, when she first realized her company had been left out of the program. Dauzat told her to attend the board’s September meeting.

She was unable to attend that meeting because her brother was dying. He died the day after the September meeting.

   “I sent my daughter to the meeting, but she was told that I withdrew from the plan, which was incorrect,” Sampson said.

   She asked board members why they would think she would take her company out of a plan that she had put so much effort into developing?

   Board member Chris LaCour said board members were unaware of her brother’s illness and death.

  “I hope you will understand my situation and realize there were things that were beyond my control,” Sampson said. “I have no other siblings and my brother depended on me, and I do not regret that I did not let him down.”

   When Sampson talked to Dauzat in September, she was told the plan could not be revised for a year. 

  She said it is her understanding the original agreement between the school district and service providers never mentioned a one-year term and that the local mental health providers were to meet quarterly to make any necessary revisions to the program.

  Board member Shelia Blackman-Dupas said the agreement did not say the program was closed, so the board can amend it. She asked that the issue be referred back to the special committee studying health care in the schools. However, no motion was made to send Sampson’s issue back to the committee.

  “Parents who have made a choice of agency should be allowed to have the counselor of that agency see their child,” Sampson told board members. “I do not feel I am being unreasonable as I feel all of our concerns are to bring quality mental health care to our children and this will give more children access to services. My agency would be an asset to the system and assistance to the other agencies already providing services.”