Chimacum School District #49
Project: Keeping Chimacum Students Connected: School-Based Mental Health Services
Request: $14,883
Your gift keeps a trusted clinician on campus when the funding runs out.
Chimacum School District's purpose is to be a caring community for courageous learners, and its promise is that every student will be known by name, strength and need. School-based mental health care helps keep that promise.
One day each week, a licensed mental health clinician is on site at Chimacum Jr./Sr. High School. Students in grades 7–12 can access assessment, early intervention, counseling and treatment, crisis response, suicide prevention, care coordination and referrals. No ability to pay, nor insurance is required. Because the clinician provides ongoing weekly treatment rather than one-time interventions, that single day sustains direct care for roughly 15 students across a school year, while also strengthening the whole school's capacity through consultation, crisis response and coordination.
Here is the problem you can help solve
The Olympic Educational Service District, which contracts with the mental health providers serving local schools, was not awarded Jefferson County 1/10 of 1% behavioral health grant funding for the 2027–28 cycle. Those dollars have paid for school-based mental health services in Chimacum.
Without replacement funding, services are expected to end in approximately February or early March 2027 - mid-year, mid-treatment, for students who are already in care.
Like many small rural districts, Chimacum is managing significant financial pressure while working deliberately to protect the services closest to students. It cannot absorb this on its own.
It's easy to assume that a student who needs a therapist gets referred to one. In practice, a rural family trying to access care off-campus runs into a stack of obstacles: the cost of care, the cost and time of transportation, a shortage of providers, long waitlists, and appointment times that conflict with a parent's work schedule. Any one of those can end the attempt. And the student in question is a teenager, often reluctant to ask twice.
What your donation makes possible
Chimacum needs help funding one day per week of licensed clinical services for 15 weeks. Your gift keeps that clinician walking through the door.
That means a student can be seen this week, in a building where they already belong, by someone they already know, before a manageable difficulty becomes a crisis requiring far more intensive and costly intervention.
The district will track results the way clinicians do: baseline and follow-up Hope Scale assessments, student satisfaction surveys, ongoing clinical assessment, treatment-plan reviews, referral tracking and service-utilization data. The outcomes they expect are reduced behavioral health symptoms, stronger emotional regulation and coping skills, increased hope and resilience, reduced suicide risk, improved functioning, and students staying connected and engaged in school.
The bottom line
This is bridge funding, not a long term fix. The district is working towards a lasting solution, but a bridge is exactly what's needed right now when the alternative is a gap no child in Chimacum can cross on their own. Your donation keeps the door open in the meantime.
