On-Site School Program

The IPTAR On-Site School Program provides high-quality, low-fee and pro bono psycho-therapeutic services within certain New York City public schools. The program serves children from under-resourced backgrounds and diverse communities that have historically had limited access to mental health care, particularly specialized services for children and adolescents.

Our therapists are candidates and graduates of IPTAR’s Child and Adolescent Program, working under the supervision of experienced clinical faculty. In 2013, the IPTAR On-Site School Program received the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Educational Achievement Award, honoring outstanding psychoanalytically informed work with educators and schools. Since its inception, the program has served more than 800 students and provided clinical training to over 150 therapists.

For more than 20 years, clinicians at IPTAR have developed and refined a psychoanalytically informed model for working with children facing complex histories of trauma and loss. From the outset, we recognized the importance of creating a practical model of care that would be intensive enough to be effective while also accessible to families managing multiple stressors. By embedding therapeutic services within the school setting, we can reduce barriers to care and help schools function as therapeutic milieus — an approach inspired in part by Bruno Bettelheim’s work at the Orthogenic School in Chicago.

Over the years, we have built strong partnerships with schools that view education as a means of breaking cycles of intellectual, emotional, and economic poverty. The students we serve range from kindergarten through twelfth grade. Some require special education services, while others are intellectually gifted. In a climate where academic testing often dominates, these schools maintain a strong commitment to nurturing the whole child and fostering learning within a supportive community.

Recognizing that emotional and behavioral challenges can interfere with a student’s capacity to learn, school administrators have collaborated with us to strengthen and expand psychological services. Together, we help students use their relationships with therapists, teachers, and peers to develop new and meaningful ways of engaging with others.

We provide psychodynamically-oriented individual and group therapy on-site during the school day, tailored to the needs of each school and its students. Treatment is offered at frequencies determined by clinical need and includes ongoing consultation with parents, teachers, and administrators. Each school has a site coordinator — an IPTAR CAP graduate or advanced candidate — who collaborates closely with educational staff to design, implement, and evaluate programs.

In addition to regular clinical services, we have offered:

• therapy groups for students, parents, teachers, and pregnant or parenting adolescents
• therapeutic tutoring
• case management
• organizational consultation
• psychoeducational workshops for adolescents, parents, and faculty on topics such as child development and recovery from trauma

We also maintain a continuity-of-care policy for children who graduate or change schools and offer free or low-cost therapy to interested family members at the IPTAR Clinical Center.