Specialized Higher Education Entities

Tom Bennett, Acadia Healthcare’s higher education resource coordinator, works with our team of Treatment Placement Specialists® to partner with higher education organizations across the country with the mission of supporting the wellness of students. Not only do we provide guidance and placement for mental health and substance use treatment, but we also vet local, regional, and national programs to determine their quality. We are highly experienced in assisting with continuing care planning and re-entry into campus life, and we often collaborate with higher education professionals to determine best practices for mental health initiatives on their campuses.

Tom Bennett has spent more than a decade working exclusively in higher education with senior administrators, department heads, and other on-campus individuals to develop and implement protocols for students requiring treatment for mental health concerns, including substance use, eating disorders, trauma, anxiety, depression, and mood disorders. His work has helped direct students and their families to appropriate levels of treatment, aftercare, and re-entry into post-secondary institutions, fostering enhanced resilience for the student and increased retention rates for the institution.

We work with students to minimize educational setbacks, such as failing courses or withdrawing from school altogether due to mental health challenges. We are equipped to work with young people across the country to find care for a variety of mental health concerns, including trauma, substance use, mood disorders, anxiety, depression, and eating disorders. The levels of care we refer to most commonly include residential treatment, detoxification and stabilization, outdoor adventure-based treatment, eating disorder recovery, partial hospitalization programs (PHPs), and intensive outpatient programs (IOPs).

We understand that family members often have questions and concerns regarding a young person’s treatment for a mental health or substance use concern. We make ourselves available to each young adult and their family to address any trepidations about the treatment or programs that our team has recommended. Our goal is to promote life-changing recovery for the young people we work with.

The Treatment Placement Specialists® team and Bennett serve as gold corporate sponsors to the Higher Education Case Managers Association (HECMA). After a careful vetting process to ensure we met the standards, mission, goals, and ethics of HECMA, our team was the first corporate sponsor. We work in collaboration with HECMA to raise awareness for mental health initiatives and provide care for emerging adults in need of behavioral health treatment.

By sponsoring HECMA, we have become a strategic partner with the institution of higher education, its community, students, and their families in order to become an off-campus resource for a range of treatment services – particularly if a student withdraws from classes altogether. Our affiliation with HECMA allows us to collaborate with an association that shares our vision to promote and improve the good health and overall well-being of students and all of those we serve.