NORTHFIELD, MA — Come next school year, Pioneer Valley Regional School students who experience a long absence will receive extra clinical and academic support through the Bridge for Resilient Youth in Transition program.

According to Christine Maguire, the school district’s special education administrator, implementing the customized program at Pioneer would mean having a more formalized plan for supporting students after an injury, illness or mental health-related absence.

“It seems like something we can do,” Maguire told the school committee recently. “We’re already doing that on an individual basis.”

Maguire said she attended a presentation about the BRYT program in November at Amherst-Pelham Regional High School, where the program already exists. It was started in 2004 at Brookline High School and has begun to take root across the state.