New funding aims to expand mental health services in New Jersey schools

Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Education (GSE) has received a $3.3 million grant to increase the number and diversity of highly trained school counselors to help fill the gap in mental health services in New Jersey high-need school districts.

The Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration grant from the U.S. Department of Education – part of a federal initiative to expand nationwide student access to school-based mental health services – will fund the GSE-led School Counseling Prevention to Intervention project.

School counseling is often a misunderstood and under-resourced profession. The lack of school counseling potentially compromises youth’s development and wellness. This project will expand essential preventative and responsive mental health services by actively reducing student-to-school-counselor ratios in some of the region’s fastest-growing and most ethnically diverse school districts.“

Ian Levy, assistant professor of school counseling at GSE and principal investigator of the project

According to the American School Counselor Association, the student-to-school-counselor ratio in New Jersey is 308 to 1, exceeding the association’s recommendation of 250 to 1 and limiting access to mental health services and necessary resources for students.

Through a five-year funding period, the project will fully cover the tuition for 30 new school counselors enrolled in the GSE’s school counseling master’s program who will be trained and placed in the New Brunswick, Rahway, Franklin Township and Neptune K-12 school districts. Project organizers will prioritize recruiting typically underrepresented trainees from the participating school district partners, Rutgers and minority-serving institutions.

The first cohort of school counselors will begin the program in 2025.

Those involved in the project also will work to develop and implement school counseling course curriculum that aids the existing program’s ability to teach culturally responsive and evidence-based mental health practices for educational settings. 

“These efforts not only amplify the importance of the school counselor as a mental health professional, but the necessity to train school counselors in methods for working with a culturally, racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse set of students in schools,” Levy said. “As a result of this project, students will have higher access to school counselors, especially ones who can implement culturally responsive and evidence-based mental health practices.”

Kathy Shoemaker, an assistant professor of professional practice at the GSE, is the co-principal investigator for the project.

Counseling and education consultants will assist in developing the course modules in some of the following content areas:

• Social and emotional learning, racial justice, and healing for culturally and linguistically diverse students
• Advocating Students-within-Environment theory and practice; Youth Participatory Action Research in school counseling practice
• The creative expressive arts in school counseling practices; and trauma-informed school counseling

“This grant will enable Dr. Levy and Dr. Shoemaker to ensure that school counselors don’t just look to remedy a problem after it exposes itself,” said Christopher Span, dean of GSE. “Instead, school counselors will be able to mitigate challenges that young people could experience before they ever arise, creating a best possible outcome. This can serve as a very important national model for proactively creating – and implementing – strategies that prepare young people to be their best selves.”