East St. Louis School District 189 receives $1.5M for student mental health

Resilience, intervention, support, and engagement together (rise together) - east st. Louis school district 189 will implement resilience, intervention, support, engagement together (rise together) to provide mental health awareness, prevention, and intervention services to approximately 1,800 students in grades 6–12 across 5 middle and high schools in east st. Louis, Illinois. Through project aware, the district will strengthen tier 1 prevention through workforce development and community partnerships and begin providing tier 2 and tier 3 services in schools, led by brightpoint. Staff professional development will address recognition of mental health concerns, substance use, suicide risk, trauma responses, and other behavioral health needs, with exploration of train-the-trainer models to build capacity. Tier 2 services will include structured psychotherapy for adolescents responding to chronic stress (sparcs) and wyman teen outreach program. Rise together will develop an integrated behavioral health referral system, strengthen coordinated school-community care, and support sustainable policies and partnerships. At least 90% of students identified through screening or referral will be connected by school staff to an intervention or support within established district timelines. The project will increase students receiving school- or community-based behavioral health services by 25% over baseline and train at least 90% of secondary staff in youth mental health first aid, suicide prevention, and other evidence-based behavioral health topics.