Newsmakers, April 14, 2016

Behavioral Health at Boys and Girls Clubs-

The Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater La Crosse became one of the few clubs in Wisconsin to have its own behavioral health specialist recently.

While Executive Director Mike Desmond said the person has already “unbelievably positive” impact on kids who use the four different locations in the La Crosse area in just a short time, the long-term impacts on the community may be equally helpful.

“There’s a mental health crisis in this community,” Desmond said. “It starts with our youth. The feeling is if we can do something early in a child’s life in a preventative way, maybe we don’t have a problem later in life.”

Support is what Laquita Becker believes she’s been able to bring to the Boys and Girls Clubs as the first behavioral health specialist. She and Desmond said many children have had trauma in their lives, and may be living in poverty and without someone in their life who they can trust. Becker said her office door is always open, and rather than being seen as a professional designed to help them with their mental and emotional issues, she’ll help a child with their homework, building a relationship that can eventually lead to teaching them ways to cope with stress or emotions like anger or sadness.

“For the kids who it’s a serious issue, if we just write it off as ‘well they’ll grow out of it, or it’s typical teenage stuff,’ well then they’re going to become adults and then society’s going to say ‘you need to get your stuff together, you’re an adult,’ and they aren’t going to know how to and then they’ll just receive those negative consequences later in life,” Becker said.

Desmond said the emphasis on behavioral health reinforces the work being done elsewhere at places like the La Crosse School District, La Crosse Police Department, YMCA, La Crosse County Human Services Department and other agencies that deal with children and families. He said the effort to tackle behavioral health issues in children is much more coordinated now than it was ten years ago.

Boys and Girls Clubs in other Wisconsin communities have reached out to the La Crosse club to learn more about the position and Desmond said it’s proving so successful that they’ve already started discussions about how they can add a second behavioral health specialist.

By John Davis