College/University Social Work Interns - School Based Mental Health Grant Funded

Purpose of Proposal : To obtain culturally and linguistically reflective full-time social work interns to provide therapeutic counseling as assigned to students from two local NJ Universities under the federally funded School Based Mental Health Grant. The School Based Mental Health Services Passaic grant is charged with increasing the number of credentialed culturally and linguistically reflective school based mental health service providers, including plans to address the recruitment and retention of credentialed service providers in order to meet the considerable post-pandemic mental health needs of Passaic Public School (PPS) pupils. School based therapeutic counseling will be provided to 500 students in 7 identified schools (9, 10, 11, 19, 20, 21, 23) of Passaic’s highest need K-8 schools. The goal of which being a decrease in SCIT’s, decrease in number of school discipline reported incidents, decrease in incidents of harassment, intimidation and bullying (HIB), decrease in chronic absenteeism among students receiving SBMH services, increase in overall school population sense of belonging, and increase in overall school population emotional regulation. An establishment of ongoing advisement from a district “design” Team/Advisory Team (Supervisor of Counseling/504 Coordinator, Owner of community-based provider of mental health services and grant site facilitator) to meet regularly and address the growing post-pandemic mental health needs of student and families to facilitate student success in identified schools. It is important to note, grant compliance requires the continued partnering with a local Hispanic/Latino owned/operated mental health services agency. The partnership with the local NJ Universities' or Colleges ensures a pipeline to actively recruit counselors /school based social workers of color to more strategically serve as role models and shift the sometimes-unavoidable biases, microaggressions, and gaps in representation that have persisted for years.