The Hall County School District launched a mental health awareness initiative in 2018, but thanks to a substantial grant from the federal government's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), school district officials will be able to build on that foundation.
The $9 million Project Aware grant - announced this past week - will be shared among the school districts in Hall, Bibb and Houston counties. Hall County will receive a total of $2 million - $400,000 each year over the next five years.
Tamara Etterling, Director of School Services for Hall County, said school officials have been aware for years that mental health awareness was a huge need for students and their families, as well as teachers.
"When we have one in five adults affected by mental health [issues] and one in three who have experienced trauma, we know that reading and writing is going to be impossible if we don't meet those needs," Etterling said. "We have a community and a society now that is really struggling."
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought even more stressors into the lives of students and their families, so that's why the Hall County School District used the 2020 school pre-planning period to train 3,500 staff members to recognize mental health struggles in the school populations. The Project Aware grant will allow Hall County to expand training efforts and develop other programs.
"What it does is allows districts to identify students and families who are in need of mental health and trauma-related services," Etterling said.
Etterling said the school district doesn't expect every teacher to be a psychologist, but when a teacher has the training to recognize mental health issues among students, then the teacher can find help for those students.
"We need to be looking at the whole child" Etterling said. "We aren't just responsible that they know reading and writing and math - and that is extremely important - but also the whole child. [In other words], their social/emotional learning, their behavior."
Meeting those needs, Etterling said, makes for healthy adults who go on to become productive community members.
In addition to the fact the Hall County School District had already laid the groundwork for a mental health initiative, Etterling said the district was selected as a grant recipient because of Hall County's large Latino population.
"Our Hispanic families are very underserved and under-identified when it comes to diagnosing mental health issues or families who have experienced trauma," Etterling said. "We want to have equity across all areas - socioeconomic, gender, race and disabilities."
Etterling said she and Superintendent Will Schofield will meet in the coming days to outline a specific plan for using the grant funding.
