Supporting students' mental health and well-being is a top priority for the Conejo Valley Unified School District and thanks to a new $11.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the District will continue to expand and build upon the mental health services it provides to students across all of its CVUSD campuses.
The funding is part of the U.S. Department of Education’s School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program, which provides competitive grants to State educational agencies, local educational agencies, and consortia of LEAs to increase the number of credentialed mental health services providers providing school-based mental health services to students.
The CVUSD is one of only 98 educational agencies nationwide to be awarded as a grantee for fiscal year 2022. The complete list of new 2022 awardees is available on the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Elementary & Secondary Education website.
“This funding comes at the perfect time,” Dr. Shanna Egans, Assistant Superintendent of Student Services for CVUSD said. “Our goal is to provide as many mental health services to students as needed. The recent addition of Wellness Rooms to our secondary schools have provided invaluable resources for our students, and this funding allows us to maintain and expand needed staffing, while also looking at how we can add new, similar resources to our elementary school campuses.”
Thanks to this large grant, which will support the CVUSD’s mental health services for five years (January 2023 through December 2027), the District will continue to stand out in excellence for the provision of mental health support services to its more than 16,000 students.
Primary objectives of the grant include:
- Recruitment of school-based licensed mental health providers and interns / hiring of diverse clinical team with the addition of 15 new positions:
- Project Director (1)
- Senior Mental Health Clinician (1)
- Mental Health Clinician 2 (2)
- Mental Health Clinician 1 (10)
- Administrative Assistant (1)
- Continue to create safe environments for students to access services
- CVUSD currently has ten Wellness Centers, which exist in three comprehensive high schools, one alternative high school, in one alternative education program and five middle schools. This funding will support these Wellness Centers for the next five years.
- Available Services: On the high school campuses wellness services include drop-in services, individual and small group counseling, workshops, classroom presentations and school-wide activities make up the services provided to students. Middle school wellness centers provide more targeted interventions that include individual and small group counseling for referred students.
- Professional development and staff training
Proposed outcomes of the grant through 2027 include improved awareness of mental health and changes in perceptions of mental health, school culture shifts/acceptance, partnerships/new student clubs and established interventions to meet student need.
“I am incredibly proud of our CVUSD team for successfully securing these grant funds to provide innovative and comprehensive mental health support to the students we serve,” Dr. Mark McLaughlin, Superintendent of Schools for CVUSD said. “We look forward to growing and expanding upon the programs and services we have in place, and thank the U.S. Department of Education for supporting our commitment to the mental health and well-being of the students we serve.”
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