The Challenge: When Capacity Isn't Enough

By most measures, Horry County Schools has built a strong internal foundation for student mental health support. Through its Rehabilitative and Behavioral Health Services program, the district employs around 99 mental health clinicians who serve students across every school. Even so, the need still exceeds what school-based teams can provide.

Timing also created another challenge. When the school year ended, district clinicians were off for the summer too, even though students and families could still face acute mental health needs.

Accessing outside care brought a different set of barriers. Horry County shares its community mental health agency with two neighboring counties, which stretches available resources across a broad area. Families often faced long wait times, limited options, insurance concerns, financial uncertainty, and the simple challenge of not knowing where to begin.

“Any conversation about money and insurance is uncomfortable, especially when you’re school staff trying to help a student,” Pickett says. “And even though things have gotten better with destigmatizing mental health, those conversations are still very concerning for parents. Calling a parent to say you’re worried about their child’s mental health is not the same thing as calling to say they have a cold.”

Those barriers were often even more pronounced in Horry County’s rural inland communities, where fewer healthcare resources and less exposure to mental health services made support harder to access.

The Solution

“When I was first introduced to Care Solace, I wasn’t sure it was something our district would benefit from because we already had an in-house mental health program,” Tonya says. “But over time, I realized that even with the capacity we have, the need still exceeds what we’re able to provide.”

What changed her perspective was the breadth of support Care Solace could offer. No other service provided the same level of coordination across behavioral health, substance use, and social services for students, families, and employees.

Today, Care Solace serves as Horry County Schools’ primary referral pathway for students who are not in immediate danger but need longer-term care beyond what the district can provide in-house. The partnership also helps reduce the burden on school staff by shifting provider vetting and care coordination to a trusted outside team.

"We let you guys do the vetting because the whole point is to free up the amount of time and, quite frankly, the liability that it puts on our staff," Pickett says.

Pickett also serves as the district's homeless liaison and oversees McKinney-Vento Act compliance. She now cross-references Care Solace utilization against families approved under McKinney-Vento each week, making sure students experiencing housing instability get the wrap-around coordination they need.

Reaching families, not just students

Care Solace also gives the district a way to support the people around each student. Pickett emphasized that many of the challenges students bring into school reflect what is happening at home.“We can work all day on the kid, but then the kid goes home. And if the adults who are responsible for that kid, if their issues aren’t addressed, then a lot of the work we’re doing is being undone.”

The same applies to staff. Teachers and staff dealing with their own struggles carry those struggles into the building with them. Care Solace has given the district a resource to offer them directly. "Care Solace has been a great tool for us to provide services for employees as well," Pickett says.

When the First Match Doesn't Work

Pickett is direct about the fact that not every initial match is the right one, but what matters is that the process does not stop there.

“Every time a parent or student hasn’t been happy with the match, we’ve been able to rematch,” she says. “We just keep going until we get satisfaction in terms of a match. That’s very important because when people have a bad experience, sometimes they can give up on the process.”

That persistence has helped more families stay engaged and continue searching until they find a provider who feels like the right fit.

Since launch, Horry County Schools has seen 6,521 service requests and we have saved school staff 12,673 hours:

Implementation: A Rollout Built Around Buy-In

Chief Officer of Student Services Velna Allen played a key role in designing the district’s rollout. Rather than relying on a broad email announcement, Horry County Schools introduced Care Solace through one-hour training sessions across all nine attendance zones. Each session brought together school counselors, in-house mental health staff, and administrators so everyone understood both the purpose of the partnership and how to use it.

“When they left, they knew why we were using it, what it was going to accomplish for us, and they all walked away having already created their account using the QR code," Pickett says.

To keep awareness strong, Pickett also brings Care Solace into annual professional development sessions for school counselors. Many counselors include the Care Solace link in their email signatures, giving families a direct path to support even after school hours.

Conclusion

Horry County Schools already had strong internal mental health resources in place. What Care Solace added was a way to extend that support further, beyond the school day, beyond the school year, and beyond what school-based staff could reasonably manage on their own.

For districts with established internal programs, Horry County’s story is a reminder that strong in-house support does not eliminate the need for care coordination. In many cases, it makes that coordination even more important. Care Solace helps bridge the gap between identifying a need and helping families take the next step toward care.

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