Multiple Prince George’s County residents celebrated a new $25 million grant to expand mental health support for Prince George’s County Public Schools students.
The funding from the Maryland Community Health Resources Commission was awarded to 18 organizations through the Consortium on Coordinated Community Supports, according to an October PGCPS news release.
The school system will partner with the organizations, which focus on services such as therapy and substance use disorder treatment and prevention, according to the news release. The organizations, some of which already work with the school system, will use the funds to supplement current PGCPS services, the news release said.
Some of the organizations provide services to all schools in the district, while others focus on specific institutions. The new services will be rolled out in the coming months across schools, according to the news release.
Emily Pasco, a mental health coordinator at PGCPS, said the school system hopes the funding allows students to access more mental health services.
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“We’re really hoping that we’re seeing these impacts in multiple ways, attendance definitely being one, and really, educational performance being another one,” Pasco said. “We know mental health affects many, many things in a student’s life.”
Andrew Evans, a junior at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, said while he hasn’t accessed the mental health services at his school, he knows students who have.
Some of the struggles students can face include academic stress, transportation issues or what happens at a student’s home, he said.
Evans said he hopes the funding would help give students access to mental health services beyond traditional methods, such as therapy.
One of the organizations that received grant funding that offers services beyond conventional therapy is Uneo Health, an organization providing an app through which all high school students in the county can access self-care resources, according to the PGCPS news release.
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District 2 PGCPS school board member Jonathan Briggs said he thinks the funding will provide students with more options to access mental health services.
Several of the organizations receiving grants provide options that are virtual or through apps, which Briggs said will help reduce barriers, such as transportation.
“I think these resources, at least in some way, will help to kind of get to those challenges that may be presenting themselves to particular communities,” Briggs said.
Some of the funding went to organizations that provide virtual therapy, such as Hazel Health, which provides teletherapy to students at all schools, according to the PGCPS news release.
Anna Bedford-Dillow, a parent of two children at Dora Kennedy French Immersion School in Greenbelt, said she hopes the funding will normalize mental health care as a routine part of a student’s life, instead of only in a crisis.
“I’d like to see it become fairly universal, so that every student gets to meet with a counselor, but it’s not something that is an isolated event, or something that happens only when there’s a problem or when someone seeks help,” Bedford-Dillow said. “Because there are plenty of students that might not seek help, might not even know that the services are available to them.”
