Supported Programs

School Based Mental Health

The BRIDGE Collaborative partners with Family Service Rochester, Fernbrook Family Center and Zumbro Valley Health Center to provide start up costs for new school based mental health therapists’ first year in a new school building. This program is continued through a billing model to insurance and medicaid and through state grant dollars for providing services to uninsured and under-insured students.

There are currently School Based Mental Health Therapists working in 21 school buildings across Olmsted County.

Trauma-Informed Schools

In 2017, the Olmsted County BRIDGE Collaborative supported Gage Elementary School to become a trauma-informed school. Gage has seen a significant decrease in discipline referrals from 2,499 major discipline referrals in the 2016/2017 school year to 541 during 2017/2018.

In 2018, the Collaborative provided funding to support Harriet Bishop Elementary in replicating the trauma-informed schools model.

Community Trainings

The BRIDGE Collaborative is committed to increasing the capacity of professionals serving the mental health needs of children and their families in our community.

The Collaborative has provided training opportunities including:

ACE Interface Trainings, Historical Trauma Training, NABITA Training, Conscious Discipline, ACT Parenting Program.

cradle.png

Cradle to Career

Cradle to Career is a community-based initiative to improve educational outcomes in Rochester, Minnesota with options to expand county-wide. It is different from other educational initiatives and programs in several ways:

▪ The entire community is engaged and invested beyond existing programs, schools and child-based initiatives.

▪ A collective impact approach establishes a proactive, systemic, data-driven approach around shared purpose, shared outcomes and a shared accountability system. Today, communities tend to be program rich and system poor. This model alters that approach to ensure long-term sustainability.

▪ The initiative is grounded in relevant data, mandating data use in decision making and focus. Because of this, it attracts investment due to its rigorous results based impacts across students, families and community.

▪ It considers every child, every student and every young adult as critical to the community’s success.

▪ Cradle to Career is a long-term method of working in a different way to dramatically improve educational outcomes resulting in healthy individuals, families and community who have economic stability with productive careers and contribute positively to a civic and equitable society.

▪ Cradle to Career is a proven model with proven results. It has been embraced by 70 cities through-out the United States and supported by a national organization, StriveTogether.

Social-Emotional Learning Curricula

The BRIDGE Collaborative has supported the expansion of Social-Emotional Learning Curricula in the following schools:

  • Second Step at Byron Public Schools, Sunset Terrace Elementary, Gibbs Elementary, Elton Hills Elementary, Gage Elementary, Folwell Elementary and Harriet Bishop Elementary

    Second Step is an evidence-based curriculum shown to decrease problem behaviors, and it’s designed to promote school success, self-regulation, and a sense of safety and support.

  • Calm Classroom at Dover-Eyota Elementary School

    Calm Classroom is a simple and accessible way to integrate mindfulness into the classroom culture. The daily practice of breathing, stretching, focusing and relaxation exercises cultivates a greater sense of self-awareness, mental focus and emotional resilience within educational spaces.

Jeremiah Program

Jeremiah Program offers one of the nation’s most successful strategies for transforming families from poverty to prosperity two generations at a time. Jeremiah prepares determined single mothers to excel in the workforce, readies their children to succeed in school, and reduces generational dependence on public assistance.