Dundee Central School District receives $1.5M federal grant for school mental health

Project aware building rural school behavioral health workforce capacity: a three-tiered framework for prevention, early intervention, and sustainable systems - Dundee Central School District, with the New York state mental health alliance, university of rochester medical center, and tst boces, will implement project aware across an 11-district rural consortium in New York’s southern tier and finger lakes regions, serving 16,449 k–12 students across 36 school buildings. The project will build sustainable behavioral health workforce capacity through a three-tiered framework anchored in a grow-your-own workforce pathway and regional leadership institute. Tier 1 will include qpr, prepare, tbri training, and grow-your-own; tier 2 will include sbirt, collective care teams, and cbits/bounce back; and tier 3 will provide referrals to individualized care through community provider mous. Goals include strengthening tier 1–3 workforce capacity, referral pathways, suicide prevention and crisis response, trauma-informed care, cross-sector systems, school climate, and resilience. By year 4, 75% of student-facing staff, approximately 1,335 of 1,780, will be trained in suicide prevention and mental health literacy. Trained crisis response teams will be established in all 11 districts by year 3, with 988 resources integrated by year 2. Grow-your-own will expand to all 11 districts by year 5, and signed tier 2/3 mous and active parental consent protocols will be established within 6 months of award.