Southside Behavioral Health Wins Community Development Grant

Southside Behavioral Health is grateful to receive an award from the Microsoft Community Empowerment Fund, managed by the Microsoft Datacenter Community Development team. The award will assist the Southside community by supporting behavioral health and wellness inside our local school systems. We are thankful to have Microsoft as a community partner.

Southside Behavioral Health has been serving the mental health needs of Southside Virginia for more than 40 years. We are well established in the community and steadily expanding our children’s services. However, in our rural communities, ease of access and location are constant barriers to service even with virtual technology. Internet connectivity is poor and unreliable in our area. By taking our services to the students instead of making them come to us, we remove the barrier of location for those in need of mental health services.

By supporting the virtual presence and expertise of our staff and utilizing proper computer equipment, Southside Behavioral Health can increase the access and availability of mental health services to students as well as their families. By increasing accessibility to and the awareness of mental health services, this project will increase student completion rates, lower absences, and lower disruptive behavior numbers in each county. This will, in turn, have a positive impact on the regional quality of life in our communities of Mecklenburg, Brunswick, and Halifax Counties Virginia.