Nevada Department of Education receives $567K Congressional Directives grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

The Nevada student trauma recovery fund expands community-based mental health access for k-12 students. - the Nevada student trauma recovery fund will implement a 1-year project to expand community-based mental health treatment for k–12 students across participating urban and rural Nevada local educational agencies. The project will serve an estimated 182 unduplicated students who have experienced acute trauma and exhibit severe behavioral, academic, or attendance concerns exceeding their schools’ multi-tiered system of supports capacity, prioritizing low-income, uninsured, underinsured, system-involved youth and children of veteran families affected by deployment. Within 60 days, the project will execute up to 8 sub-awards—7 to local educational agencies and 1 to a community mental health provider—to initiate localized treatment. Schools will refer eligible students to licensed professionals for evidence-based trauma interventions, including cognitive behavioral therapy and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, through a simplified fee-for-service reimbursement model. The community mental health provider will also deliver direct clinical interventions and use consortium billing to reduce rural administrative barriers. By the end of the project, the fund will initiate community-based treatment for 182 students and deliver up to 2,731 trauma-specific therapeutic sessions.