The Hall County School System is one of three Georgia school districts to receive funding from a $9M federal grant to address mental health awareness. The grant, titled Project Aware, is designed to accomplish three things:
- increase awareness of mental health issues among school-aged youth;
- provide training for school personnel and other adults who interact with school-aged youth to detect and respond to mental health issues; and
- connect school-aged youth who may have behavioral health issues (including serious emotional disturbance or serious mental illness) and their families to needed services.
Bibb and Houston County school districts will also receive funding from the grant.
The Hall County School District will receive $400K a year over a period of five years.
Director of Student Services for the Hall County School District, Tamara Etterling, will meet soon with Superintendent Will Schofield and the Hall County team to plan for using the funding to support the district’s mental health initiative, which began in 2018.
“In the Hall County School District, we focus on striving to be the most caring place on earth,” said Etterling. “At the onset of the pandemic, we also became focused on helping our community to not just survive, but to thrive. We are honored and excited to receive a grant that will allow us to equip students, families, and schools to work toward both of those goals in very practical ways.”
Etterling says the grant will allow the school system to do more “for the whole child,” saying, “We have a bigger task than simply educating kids.”
“This goes beyond the classroom and addresses areas like mental health and well-being that we know undoubtedly impact all facets of life – including the classroom.”
Superintendent Schofield says the school district’s mental health initiative was already underway before the pandemic. “Certainly the era of COVID has raised the anxiety and trauma levels even higher for many students already struggling with mental health issues,” he says. “The bottom line is we have young people who are struggling, and we need to support them.” He says the funding provided by Project Aware will allow Hall County Schools to build upon a strong foundation and expand some practices to better meet students’ needs.
