Has your school district been hit with massive cuts to your federal and state funding? When you have to keep your schools operating on a whole lot less, you might feel like you have no choice but to cut your student mental health support programs.
There is another way.
Here’s why you need to find a way, and how you can both do more with less, and find more funding to keep your programs.
The coming escalation of student mental health problems
Without mental health support, districts will suffer from even greater impacts than we saw after the pandemic. Chances are, you are already experiencing the following:
Extreme behavior problems impacting students at younger ages. Students increasingly lack social skills, executive functioning, and the ability to cope with any kind of stress. These issues not only reduce their capacity to learn, but their disruptive behavior prevents other students from learning as well.
More self-harm and violence. Schools in every part of the country and at every socio-economic level are seeing rising rates of suicidal ideation and actions, as well as violent behavior toward others. No school community is immune from the possibility of a tragedy.
Angry (or absent) parents. While there were always exceptions, we once counted parents as our allies in education. Today it feels different for many educators. There’s a lot of blame, or a lot of silence.
Staff burnout from being forced to deal with all of the above, often without any training or resources. This pressure decreases the quality of their work, and it’s the culprit behind the “great resignation” and the growing deficit of teachers entering the profession.
What has caused things to get to this point? Unfortunately, developments that we can’t control and that aren’t going away anytime soon. Like constant exposure to social media and technology that has reduced social-emotional learning and actually changed the way kids’ brains are wired. Like the increasingly divisive culture in our country. Students are mimicking the dysregulated emotions and behavior they see from adults.
Yes, we’re facing a very challenging time. But we can’t throw in the towel and give up in disgust, much as we might like to sometimes. As educators, we got into this to make a difference in the lives of young people and to shape the future.
The good news is, we can still achieve that. Here’s how.
3 ways to improve mental wellness with limited funds
1. Conduct a needs assessment
Find out what factors are making the largest and most immediate impact on teaching and learning. Turn to your experts: teachers and support staff. Send a survey to all and collect responses anonymously if needed to get honest feedback. Ask for their ideas and priorities.
This relatively simple and inexpensive step can reveal exactly where you need to spend your limited budget to get the most payback.
Here’s a resource that can help:
Conducting A Student Mental Health Needs Assessment
2. Train classroom aides
The people we hire to help manage the students with the greatest needs often receive little to no training on how to do their jobs effectively. I’m talking about paraprofessionals, aides, teaching assistants, or whatever the title is in your district. These are people who love children and desperately want to help.
A tiny investment in training can make a huge difference in their effectiveness, improve support for teachers, and help struggling students do better and become more independent.
Learn more:
Shifting the Role of Paraprofessionals in Special Education
3. Build relationships
Personal connections — between teachers and students, between teachers and support staff, and between administrators and everyone at school — can make a huge impact on everyone’s mental wellness and ability to succeed.
It doesn’t take a huge budget to communicate with people. To motivate them to connect with each other and with students. To reframe their thinking about people who are struggling emotionally (“What happened to you” instead of “What’s wrong with you?”).
When we take just a few moments throughout the day to get to know each other, we can more easily recognize those who may need help (students and adults) and help them get the support they need.
Try this: Experiment With Kindness.
How to find funding for student mental health support
Believe it or not, there is funding out there to pay for the programs you need and value most, including the services of mental health clinicians.
Overlooked funding sources
Try tapping into federal sources that your district may not be fully utilizing, including:
Title Funds. Title I, Title IV, and Title V funds can all be used to pay for a range of student mental health programs with the goal of improving conditions for learning and supporting the school community.
Special Education Medicaid Initiative (SEMI). SEMI provides funding to reimburse public school districts for a portion of the costs of school-based special education services. Mental health support services, such as assessments and psychological counseling, are reimbursable expenses under SEMI.
Extraordinary Aid. Extraordinary Aid helps school districts cover the costs of supporting individual students who need a more intensive level of services from the district. That can include students with behavioral and emotional problems who need individual and small-setting support.
Learn more: Download our guide to funding mental wellness programs in schools.
Take back excessive spending on out-of-district placements
It’s a simple formula:
- How much are you spending on out-of-district tuition and transportation for students with mental health issues?
- Chances are good that there are at least a few who could be better served in-district with the help of a trained mental health clinician.
- In most cases, bringing just one student back to the district can pay for a clinician, who can then serve the needs of many more students, families, and staff.
This is easier to accomplish than you might expect.
Learn more:
Reducing Out-of-District Placement: A Guide for Educators
Worksheet: How to Find Funds for Mental Health Support
Don’t let budget cuts derail your progress
If you have worked hard to implement mental health support programs that are making a difference, don’t give in to the pressure to return to the dark days when student mental health issues were ignored.
It may not be easy. You’ll have to fight back against the old argument that mental health is not the school’s responsibility. Schools have an obligation to remove obstacles that prevent students from accessing their education. Mental health issues are major obstacles that impede students’ ability to learn.
Mental health is a foundational need (like food, shelter and safety) without which students cannot achieve higher-level goals like learning. If we fail to address student mental health, everything else we do in school will be ineffective.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out to Thrive for more information or advice.
