by The School of Social Work
April 1st 2024
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Infinite Healing Solutions — an outpatient mental health and social service program in Redmond, Oregon recently received a $5,000 grant from Central Oregon Health Council — in order to provide free childcare for parents engaging in therapy at the agency. BSW student Sydney Cook catalyzed the need for this grant during her time interning at Infinite Healing Solutions.
While working her internship at a brand new outpatient mental health and social service program Cook noticed a problem for some of the program's clients.
She explains, "There were times when I would sit in on mental health appointments and observed that the client's child(ren) either wanting to participate in the process, and/or the client needing to avert their attention to childcare needs. I wanted to find a way for both clients and their children to be attended to during sessions, so I asked my supervisor if I could apply for a mini-grant through the Central Oregon Health Council for a sum of $5,000, to which she immediately agreed.”
To address this problem, she created a project titled “Infinite Healing: Revolutionizing Mental Health Care through Compassionate Childcare Solutions.”
Cook states, “This initiative was created as a pilot program aimed at providing free childcare for parents engaging in therapy at our agency, all of whom are covered by the Oregon Health Plan (OHP), the health care program that provides medical insurance for low-socioeconomic individuals and families in Oregon. The primary goal was to eliminate the financial burden and stress of finding suitable childcare, allowing these parents to fully engage in the therapeutic process without distraction or additional stress”
The allocated funding of $5,000 will go towards monthly stipends for Cook and another intern, as well as future PSU interns with the agency. This allocation ensures the program's continuity without imposing any financial strain on the agency itself, so they can offer free childcare to individuals receiving therapy at their clinic for the next year.
Cook’s original grant application asked COHC for stipend funding to promote the longevity of this program, then applied for an additional grant so she could market the initiative with merchandise, brochures, and fliers. The latter grant was denied, but the original was approved as of March 4th, 2024. Cook is currently writing the policies and documents so she can start running the program in mid-March.
She explains, “We will start providing childcare 4 days a week for families from 9am-3pm Monday through Thursday. The first funds will be disputed to the interns at the end of March and continue until March of 2025”.
If the process goes well, Cook will be able to apply for additional grant funding to make this more of a concrete program within her agency so all their clients can have access to free childcare during their therapy sessions.
She says, “I am super proud of this project and hope this inspires other students in the program to dive into the macro aspects of their agencies because even interns can make a huge difference!”
Cook is currently a senior in the BSW program here at PSU and will be running the initiative with another intern at her agency who is enrolled in the clinical MSW program.