Garfield Wins $500k for Mental Health Programs
Dr. Hart announced at the Nov. 14 PTSA Board meeting that Garfield has won $500,000 in new funding for student mental health supports during the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years.
GHS was competing with three other Seattle high schools for grants offered by the Seattle Department of Education and Early Learning (DEEL).
The lead Garfield staff person is Jamie Rees, an Academic Intervention Specialist who also is the building coordinator for students experiencing homelessness.
Among the new resources:
- An additional full-time mental health professional will be based at the Garfield Teen Health Center, which is operated by Seattle Children’s / Odessa Brown Clinic.
- As many as six University of Washington doctoral students in psychiatry will do field work at Garfield.
- A staff member from a longtime GHS partner, the Urban League, will help manage and coordinate the new resources.
Some or all of the services should start next month. Garfield will provide more details soon.
The intent is to build upon the experience with programming already in place at five schools that began implementing DEEL’s Student Mental Health Supports Pilot in the 2022-23 school year. They are Rainier Beach, Ingraham, and Chief Sealth International high schools, and Denny International and Aki Kurose middle schools. (They continue to receive funding.)
The three types of services eligible for the grant funding are:
- Direct clinical care provided by licensed mental health clinicians
- Mental and emotional health screenings and referrals to mental health supports and care services
- Social-emotional learning activities during the school day providing a space for students to develop healthy identities, manage emotions, feel and show empathy for others, build supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions