Grantee Highlights
As NCSSLE provides specialized direct assistance and training to a set of U.S. Department of Education funded grantees, we collect highlights to feature helpful examples and lessons learned to the field. Below we provide a range of grantee highlights you can browse through or search by state or topic.
Displaying 9 Grantee Highlight(s).Through the Project Prevent (Cohort 2) grant, Stringtown Public School provides a community partnership with Riverbend Counseling Services for students and families. This grant gave Stringtown the opportunity to hire 3 mental health professionals, offer counseling services at no cost to students, and provide a social emotional learning curriculum. Starting with data collection that identified specific needs for students, families, staff, and community, Stringtown focused on making data analysis actionable by using the insights to implement program interventions and strategies and staff…
In September of 2022, students in Newark Public Schools returned to in person classes after 2 years of online learning during the pandemic. To bridge the gap that had been created between home and school during this time, the district used Supportive Schools Newark grant funds from the Mental Health Service Professionals Demonstration Grant to purchase Social Emotional Learning kits for student’s grades K-8 to continue practicing at home the SEL skills they were learning in the classroom.
The kits were tailored with different items and activities depending on the student’s age: for instance…
In Newark, New Jersey, parent liaisons serve in each of the district’s schools to help families navigate questions, learn about available programs, and stay up to date on events such as parent-teacher conferences. The Newark Board of Education works closely with these parent liaisons and holds workforce development trainings to better prepare them for this work.
Within the past year, the Board has worked to develop a Community Directory, a resource for students, parents, and community members. The Community Directory provides a list of organizations and programs in Newark that are open to…
Mental Health Service Professional grant recipients Joseph Wharff and Jamey Petersen have maintained successful partnerships in rural communities. Joseph is the Associate Director of the Office of Student Services at the Virginia Department of Education and State Coordinator of the Virginia Partnership for School Mental Health, and Jamey is the Coordinated School Health Director for the Montana Office of Public Instruction.
For Jamey, partnerships are essential in a rural state with many isolated communities. The Montana Office of Public Instruction (OPI) collaborates with The University of…
Mental Health Service Professional grant recipients Michelle Warren, Ed.D., Nationally Certified School Psychologist (NCSP) at Osage County Interlocal Cooperative (OCIC) in Oklahoma and Christine Judson, Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) from Chicago Public Schools, share a common goal of recruiting and retaining school based mental health providers in their districts. In order to do this, both Michelle and Christine emphasize the importance of workforce development initiatives in providing quality training services, field experience, and certification opportunities to graduate…
Niagara Falls City School District (NFCSD) is using the Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration grant initiative to provide new wraparound support services to students and families. Key activities include:
providing direct emotional support to students in school by placing up to 15 mental health interns in all district schools;
partnering with a local counseling agency to provide individual and family counseling to students and families;
training and coaching district staff on trauma-informed care; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and other mental health topics; and
utilizing…
As an innovative adaptation to the sudden disconnection of students from their school community over the course of the past year, the student support team at Del Norte County, California schools, a Mental Health Services Professional grantee, arranged to convert its Yoga Calm, an evidence-based program, to a combination in-person/Zoom! platform. As a trauma-informed program, Yoga Calm was taught in classrooms prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the school district began to adjust to the pandemic’s restrictions, the need for tools to manage stress and anxiety was even greater than it had been,…
The Public Schools of Robeson County, North Carolina [PSRC], as part of its Project SCORE (School Counseling Opportunities in Robeson Education) Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration grant, has invested creativity, collaboration, and energy to ensure strong connections for students’ families despite public health imperatives for physical distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The district has initiated regular family support opportunities through scheduled on-line events, and maintains open communication, in part through an electronic newsletter. Project SCORE has developed and…
Oakland Unified School District held an African American Female Excellence Black Girl Power Conference in the fall of 2018. The OUSD superintendent’s plan prioritizes continued support for African American female excellence programming, a program that complements their multi-tiered systems of support efforts and trauma programming.