Battle Ground Public Schools is one of three Washington school districts to share in a $10 million Project AWARE grant to support student mental health and wellness over five years. The district was notified last week, but not the exact amount of its share.
“There is a demonstrated need in this community for this kind of assistance, said Mark Hottowe, the district’s superintendent.
A number of agencies and coalitions in the community already help students to be healthy, he said. The grant will help to coordinate and focus all of those efforts.
“We will be able to work together to provide a menu of services in our community,” he said. “That collaboration piece was something we wrote into the grant application to provide the most assistance we can provide for the community.”
Over the next several months, the district will work with the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and Educational Service District 112 on a detailed plan to spend the money. The work will begin by determining community needs and a structure for the program. Next will come the hiring of mental health counselors and other staff.
The district employs school counselors who each help hundreds of students with academics and more generalized work, Hottowe said. The grant will pay for mental health counselors to work in the schools both with small groups of students, and also one-on-one with students. The students and their families would be able to meet with these mental health counselors outside of school, too, he said.
The grant also will fund increased training for staff and community members and increased mental health services to students, said Denny Waters, the district’s executive director of special education.
OSPI was awarded the grant by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Project AWARE brings together students, parents, educators, mental health providers, local law enforcement and juvenile justice agencies and other community-based organizations, including the Battle Ground Mentor Collaborative, Prevent Together: Battle Ground Prevention Alliance, and Youth Suicide Prevention Program to talk about mental health promotion, school climate and violence prevention.
