ROCHESTER, N.Y. — With all the back-to-school energy building up, so are stressors that can derail a child's return to the classroom.

Rochester Regional Health and the Rochester City School District are teaming to answer that challenge. Children and their families can receive everything from mental health services to primary care. 

Therapists like Mike Pernot are ready to help at city schools like Edison Tech.

This is more than just behavioral services. They're looking out for some of the standard things kids may be dealing with and more.

"So a lot of the kids come in for restlessness, irritability, trouble sleeping, impact on their grades, behavioral concerns," said Pernot. "And that’s usually what brings kids in. And then once we start to dig into what’s going on, they open up and we can kind of explore what’s fixable and what is not."

This is Pernot's second year at Edison and he has a plan for things he will do this year that didn't so last year.

"I mean parent collaboration is always tricky," he said "Being the only therapist last year, there’s a new therapist here now, so there’s two. So I think that’ll give me a little more time to collaborate with parents, with guardians, with pastors, with whoever is important in the kids' lives. So they really know what the kids, what their baseline is and they know when things aren’t going quite right. And they can see when things are getting better, and when things are getting worse. So that’s a really good barometer to see if therapy is working and if it’s helping them."

Part of helping the child also involves guiding the entire family. Pernot gave examples of how parents can help start a conversation.

"Kids in general really just need a safe place to talk about what’s going on," said Pernot. "It’s a confusing part of their life and there’s a lot of changes happening really, really quickly. And to have somebody to really be there with them in those moments and to figure out 'what do I do with these feelings of anxiety? What do I do with these feelings of sadness or loneliness?' And recognizing those as a normal part of the human experience. I think that’s really helpful for kids to not feel so alone. So if parents can just open that door and instead of asking one of those general questions like, 'oh, how was school?' And you get a 'it was OK.' Asking a very specific question like 'what was one thing that happened that was exciting? What didn’t go quite right today?' And just opening the door to more specific conversations can be very helpful for the kids."

Families can register their children online for Rochester Regional Health behavioral services at city schools.

To learn more, click here.