Nevada Department of Education receives $1.5M Center for Mental Health Services Projects of Regional and National Significance grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

Project aware in Nevada - Nevada’s project aware rural and frontier comprehensive school behavioral health expansion is a five-year initiative to build sustainable, comprehensive school behavioral health capacity in 3 rural and frontier Nevada local education agencies serving 56 schools and 11,929 students in pre-kindergarten through grade 12. The population of focus includes school personnel, behavioral health providers, families, and community partners whose capacity to identify, prevent, and respond to student behavioral health needs will be strengthened, along with the students they serve. The project will increase early identification of behavioral health concerns, improve access to evidence-based prevention and intervention services, strengthen family engagement and education-behavioral health collaboration, and establish sustainable school behavioral health infrastructure. By year 2, universal behavioral health screening will be implemented in 100% of participating schools 3 times annually, and multidisciplinary behavioral health teams and standardized referral protocols will be established in all participating leas. By year 5, the percentage of students identified through screening who receive appropriate evidence-based interventions or referrals will increase by at least 30% over baseline, and family participation in behavioral health engagement and support activities will increase by at least 25% over baseline.