THE AMY CENTER RECEIVES ST. CLARE FOUNDATION GRANT, WILL HIRE MENTAL HEALTH PROVIDER
The Amy Schulz Child Advocacy Center
618-244-2100
500 Fairfield, Rd | Mt. Vernon
The Amy Schulz Child Advocacy Center will introduce new services this summer thanks to an Anchor Investment courtesy of the St. Clare Foundation.
Designed to deliver systemic change in youth and adolescent behavioral health across the southern Illinois region, the Anchor Investment will permit The Amy Center to hire a full-time mental health provider, something the agency has hoped to introduce for decades.
“We applied for a three-year grant that would fund the salary of a trauma-informed mental health provider for the children and families that we serve,” said Michaela Wharton, Executive Director of The Amy Center. “This position is kind of a unicorn. This is someone that has trauma-informed training, and certain licenses that allow them to do that kind of work.”
Wharton said The Amy Center has historically utilized outside organizations for therapy services, and that the new position will allow them to provide those same services in-house for a majority of their caseload.
“We are so grateful for the organizations we can make referrals to for mental health. That is the only way we can make sure these children receive those services,” said Wharton. “But we would be naïve to say that it would not be beneficial to have someone here in-house to speak with children and families and provide a more holistic set of services.
“In a perfect world, our provider would be able to take the whole caseload, but that’s not feasible for one person,” Wharton continued. “We will still be working with some of those agencies, and that will help with waitlists.”
The new position is currently open for applications on Indeed under the title “Child Family Therapist”. Wharton said she hopes to see the selective candidate begin work by July 1.
Wharton wished to thank the St. Clare Foundation for the opportunities they have afforded The Amy Center and other area organizations through their inaugural grant process.
“I think the St. Clare Foundation is just a wonderful organization that shows true generosity and wants to make a long-lasting impact. They are sitting down with organizations and looking at where the real gaps are,” said Wharton. “When I was writing for the grant, I really dug deep into their mission and their goals. Everything I kept seeing and reading lined up perfectly with what we try to do at The Amy Center.”
“I was so grateful I got the call that we were one of the inaugural recipients of that grant,” Wharton continued. “It feels like this is a collective solution-minded effort that is going to make such an impact and create such a ripple effect.”
Speaking on the inaugural wave of grants, Executive Director of the St. Clare Foundation, Clare Kessler, said, “Being able to support an organization like The Amy Center in this way is exactly why the Felician Sisters created the St. Clare Foundation. Our Foundation is committed to bringing transformation to youth and adolescent behavioral health in this community through amplifying resources and supporting organizations of similar missions that already provide critical services to our youth.”
Kessler continued, “Our goal is to bridge gaps in care and respond to needs, so helping The Amy Center bring a mental health provider to their organization for the first time in their history is the exact type of transformation we hoped to be a part of. The importance of The Amy Center’s role in bringing hoping and healing to the most vulnerable youth in our community cannon be overstated, and it is a true honor for us to partner with them.”
The St. Clare Foundation’s inaugural grant cycle saw the Foundation deploy over $500,000 to local organizations via three high-impact programs; Anchor Investments, Innovation/Seed Grants, and Capacity-Building Mini-Grants. These programs are designed to deliver systemic change in youth and adolescent behavioral health across the region.
In addition to The Amy Center, Selmaville School and Centralia City Schools received Anchor Investments. Mt. Vernon City Schools District #80, Odin Public Schools, and the Illinois Chapter of the National Alliance of Mental Illness received an Innovation/Seed Grant. Centralia Community Youth Center and Mater Dei Catholic High School received Capacity-Building Mini-Grants.
