Stony Brook Launches School Mental Health Program Across Seven Suffolk Districts

Susan Wilner had a single, urgent goal when Stony Brook Medicine began surveying school districts across Suffolk County: keep struggling students out of emergency rooms. That goal became the CARE Initiative, a hybrid mental health program that launched in September 2025 and now serves students across seven Suffolk County school districts from centers in Riverhead, Wainscott, Stony Brook, and Commack.

The initiative, formally named the Child and Adolescent Resource for Emotional Health and Overall Wellness, grew directly out of needs assessments Stony Brook conducted with families and districts across Long Island. "What we found was nothing shocking," said Wilner, Director of Behavioral Health Strategic Initiatives at Stony Brook Medicine. "The districts were asking for a lot of things, from gynecology to orthopedics, but most importantly, they wanted help with behavioral health. That's where the CARE initiative began."

The urgency behind that request reflects a five-year escalation in demand for mental health and addiction services across Suffolk County, a climb accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Without a rapid-response school pathway, districts have typically had few options when a student reaches crisis: call 911 or send them to an ER. "Our goal is to meet the needs of districts when they identify students who, in the past, might have otherwise been sent to an emergency room," Wilner said.

What students in those seven districts can access now includes immediate psychiatric assessments, short-term counseling, medication management, and follow-up care. Specialists from Stony Brook Children's Hospital span psychiatry, neurology, psychology, developmental pediatrics, and social work. Virtual visits are available, including during the school day, for students facing transportation barriers or scheduling conflicts. Each referral flows through a school-connected point of contact, designed to ensure continuity rather than one-off crisis response.

Stony Brook Children's Hospital carries a distinction that gives the program institutional weight: it is the only academic medical institution on Long Island providing inpatient child psychiatry services.

Still, several critical details have not been publicly disclosed. Stony Brook has not released specific capacity targets for each center, typical wait times from referral to first assessment, or whether services are available in languages beyond English. The program has also not announced a single trackable metric by which families can judge whether CARE is actually reducing school-to-ER referrals, the core problem it set out to solve.

Dr. Cathryn Galanter, Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Stony Brook, is overseeing the clinical side alongside Wilner. Each center is currently staffed with social workers and psychiatric nurse practitioners; a psychiatrist to serve as medical director has not yet been appointed. The program is also already expanding beyond its original behavioral health focus to include access to pediatrics and neuropsychological testing.

Though seven districts are now contracted, Wilner said CARE has been presented to every school district in Suffolk County. "Some are already contracted with other providers, and others are waiting to see how things develop, but we're in active discussions with more districts about joining next year."

School districts interested in connecting with the program can reach the CARE team at sbcareinfo@stonybrookmedicine.edu.