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19 <br /> Edinburg collaborates with Emerson Hospital,Eliot Community Mental Health Center, <br /> Wayside/RePlace, and a range of individual mental health service providers. It <br /> bid, incidentally, on the service contract funded by the Town of Lexington that went to Eliot <br /> Community Health Services before it reverted to RePlace. Its collaboration with the Lexington <br /> Police Department has been especially fruitful in recent years. Typically, a local police officer <br /> phones and brings in a person referred by family or friends as in an emotional crisis. Edinburg <br /> gave an award to the Lexington Police for the dedication and quality of their services this year. <br /> Agency professionals evaluate the client's problems and capabilities, utilizing placement <br /> at Emerson Hospital if necessary for the immediate short term. They assign a case manager, <br /> create a team of staff, and begin a program of therapy, medication, and day program <br /> participation. <br /> Edinburg copes as well as it can with what it deems to be a number of serious <br /> impediments to the provision of adequate services. These impediments include the difficulty of <br /> achieving coordination between the many towns and jurisdictions they serve; seriously <br /> insufficient funding for outpatient services; and very inadequate transportation services-no <br /> public buses operate between Lexington or Waltham and the Center. In addition,this large and <br /> bustling professional center has no budgeted resources for research and development, program <br /> planning, or staff training and development. The director also noted that the Center's overall <br /> annual funding is not growing. <br /> Lexington High School Guidance Department(LGD). LGD consists of eight full time <br /> professionals, a psychologist, counselors and social workers, and a director. The director referred <br /> us to his staff because he was new to the town and the school in 2002. We interviewed five <br /> members. <br /> LGD serves a caseload of 200 students per staff member. About 80 percent of their <br /> time is devoted to college and job placement counseling. Social adjustment and mental health <br /> issues received 20 percent or less of their time. The mental health service provided <br /> by staff in LGD is of an emergency kind - disruptions and episodes that come up unexpectedly <br /> during the school day in particular- and is devoted to very short term problem solving. <br />