Washington (AP) – in the rural parts of New York, schools have more than 1,100 students for each mental health provider. In a distant region with a little public transport, these several school advisers are often the only mental health specialists accessible to students.
Hennessey Lustica monitors the efforts funded by grants for training and hiring more school psychologists, advisers and social workers in the lakes region, but these efforts may soon end the Wire of the Trump Administration to cancel school grants to the country.
“Keeping this funding will simply devastate the children,” says Lutiouti, director of the joint workforce project in Wellness at Seneca Falls Central School District. “The workforce we develop, in my 21 school areas, will be influenced by this and have no support for the mental health they need.”
The $ 1 billion grants for school -based mental health programs were part of the vast pistol bill signed by President Joe Biden in 2022 in response to school firing in Uvalde, Texas. The grants had to help schools hire more psychologists, advisers and other mental health workers, especially in rural areas.
According to the administration of Biden, the department prioritizes candidates who have shown how they will increase the number of suppliers of diverse origin or from communities directly served by the school neighborhood. But President Donald Trump’s administration has undertaken aspects of grant programs that have touched a race, saying they are harmful to students.
“We owe it to American families to ensure that taxpayer dollars support the practices based on evidence that are truly focused on improving the mental health of students,” said Education Spokesman Madi Biederman.
School districts around the United States are interrupting training and detention programs
Lustika learned about the cancellation of her grant in April in a two -page letter of the education department, which said the government found that its work was violating the Civil Rights Act. Don’t specify how.
Lustica plans to appeal the decision. She rejected the characteristic of the letter of her work, saying that she and her colleagues obey an ethics code, which honors the individuality of each person, regardless of race, gender or identity.
“Rhetoric is just incorrect,” Lustika said. “I don’t know how to say it. I think if you look at these programs and look at the impact these programs have in our rural school districts, and the stories that children will tell you about the mental health specialists who are in their schools, this has helped them because of this program.”
The grants supported programs in areas across the country. In California, the West Conta Costa University School will lose nearly $ 4 million in funding. In Alabama, schools in Birmingham City have been informed that they will not receive the rest of the $ 15 million grant, which he uses for training, hiring and retaining mental health staff.
In Wisconsin, the State Department of Public Training will lose $ 8 million allocated over the next four years. The state had used money to strengthen the retention and expansion of programs to encourage higher students to pursue a career in mental health based at school.
“At a time when communities are urgently wanting help to serve mental health needs, this decision is indeterminate,” said a statement by state supervisor Jill.
In the last hearing of the Chamber and the Senate, the Democrats pressed the Minister of Education Linda McMahon at the end of the grants and the impact on students. McMahon told them that mental health is a priority and grants will be reissued and reissued.
“Anyone who works or spends time with children knows that these grants are desperately funding the necessary access to mental health services,” the US President of the US Teachers Federation Randy Weyngarten said in a statement. “Canceling funding is now a cruel, reckless act that puts millions of children at risk.”
Grant programs put more mental health specialists in schools
The stomach on the mental health of youth are acute in many rural schools.
In an area in New York, half of the students had to move because of the economic difficulties in the last five years, creating instability that could affect their mental health, Lustika said. In a study of students from grades sixth to 12 in one county, almost half reported that he feels sad or depressed most of the time; One of three years said that they lack a clear purpose or meaning in their lives.
“We have huge amounts of depression, huge amounts of anxiety, a lot of trauma and insufficient suppliers,” Lustika said. “The school is where children receive many of the services they need.”
Some families in the region are not able to afford private counseling or are unable to make their children meet with challenges of transportation, said Daniel Leg, a graduate student who has made an internship as a school social worker with a gratuitous funding program.
“Their access to mental health is really limited to that when they are at school and there is a supplier who can see them, and this is vital,” Leg said.
In the last three years, 176 students have completed their mental health training through the LUSTICA program, and 85% of them have been hired in shortage areas, she said.
The program offering graduates in schools has helped to deal with staff needs and inspire many to pursue a career in education, said Susan McGowan, a school social worker who controls graduates in the school of Geneva.
“It just seems to me that really catastrophic,” McGowan said about the cancellation of grants. “These positions are difficult to fill, so when you get students who are ready to work hand in hand with other professionals in their building, you are actually building your capacity when it comes to staff and you support teachers.”
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