Grant program to expand behavioral health support at Lake County schools
LAKE COUNTY >> The Mental Health Student Services Act (MHSSA) grant program was designed to provide support services that include, at a minimum, services provided on school campuses, suicide and drop-out prevention services, placement assistance and service plans for students in need and outreach to highrisk youth, “including foster youth, youth who identify as LGBTQ and youth who have been expelled or suspended from school”, said Deputy Director, Administration and Compliance Officer with the Lake County Behavioral Services Elise Jones.
According to the Lake County Office of Education, the funds are being used to provide mental health services in the schools and professional development to staff members on trauma-informed strategies and social and emotional support. As explained by Deputy Superintendent Cynthia Lenners, “this grant was initially funded in early 2020. The Lake County grant was funded in early fall 2021, when additional monies provided by the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission (MHSOAC) became available. Currently we are in the process of hiring for positions provided in the grant.”
The Office of Education is recruiting four graduate level mental health professionals to staff the program. The job posting can be accessed online at edjoin. org/Home/DistrictJobPosting/1489647.
“All of our districts have seen instances of students and adults who are suffering from the prolonged isolation and impact of the pandemic,” said the deputy superintendent. “Students, especially in the transition period of moving from one school to another, have lost a lot of the opportunities that would have prepared them for this change. If a student is going into Middle School or High School in 2122, the last time they completed a full school year, they were in the middle of their elementary school years or just starting middle school. There are a lot of big changes in going from a self-contained classroom to a large secondary school with more kids, more teachers and different expectations.”
The behavioral services deputy director added that the MHSSA grant will expand the availability of behavioral health supports at school sites around the County. “Educators and school staff will also receive training on identifying the signs and symptoms of potential behavioral health issues in the student population to ensure students are connected to the appropriate resources in a timely manner,” said Jones.
Social and emotional support programs
Adding curriculum that deals with social and emotional learning, providing additional counseling services and tutoring, and working with community agencies to provide extra support are now a well stablished reality among the school districts. “When this grant is fully staffed, it will provide additional mental health services to students in Lake County schools”, said Lenners. “The pandemic has exacerbated issues we were already dealing with — families that already struggled to afford childcare had to leave jobs to take care of at-home children, and people who had jobs in various areas lost those jobs as businesses shut down. This led to even greater insecurity for many of our children and their families.”
There are a variety of programs that the schools are putting in place, such as student support groups, stronger home-room systems, “and the California Department of Education is providing funds for social and emotional support for the adults that work at schools and professional development to help schools support all students. Lake County Office of Education is partnering with Lake County Behavioral Health Services on this grant, but we have other partnerships with local health-care providers and communitybased organizations. It was designed a proposal that include additional mental health staff who will collaborate with teachers and other school staff to provide services and increase access to mental health interventions,” concluded Lenners.
“This grant was initially funded in early 2020. The Lake County grant was funded in early fall 2021, when additional monies provided by the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission (MHSOAC) became available. Currently we are in the process of hiring for positions provided in the grant.”
— Cynthia Lenners, deputy superintendent at Lake County Office of Education