A new state program is aiming to get more mental health professionals at school districts with high levels of poverty.

A grant through the New Jersey Department of Education will be distributed out over five years with more than $14 million going to schools.

It's a push by state officials to address the shortage of counselors, psychologists and social workers amid an ongoing youth mental health crisis.

Our mental health writer Bobby Brier joins me now with the details.

Bobby, I'd like to know first, is this state grant program different, separate from what the Murphy administration wants to do with this whole hub and spoke model for schools?

Yes, this would be different from what I am told from the spokesperson for the Department of Children and Families who are running the current hub and spoke model and developing that, that this would, in fact, be different from that model.

And essentially, as the spokesperson had told me that they would try to complement one another in the fact that this grant that the Department of Education has received would be more clinical based to hire and retain more mental health professionals, whereas the hub and spoke model would be more of a preventative measure.

So these would try to work in tandem with one another and would be coexisting at the same time.

Okay.

So all trying to tackle this crisis.

What type of positions would these schools be able to now hire?

So the positions that they're looking to right now would be to retain and recruit and hire more counselors, school psychologists and social workers, especially at school districts that have a severe lack of these mental health professionals and where more than 20% of students received free and reduced lunches.

So this would really be to not only add that to the curriculum and to the school districts, but also to hire and retain more therapists of color, in order to better serve and reflect students throughout the state of New Jersey.

We know it's been a really hard year, few years for this age group in particular school based age group.

So how does this work more largely to get at what's become really, you know, a crisis in mental health that the state now is trying to fix?

Yeah, this would really target in order to have some of those clinicians in schools where where students are every single day, you know, going to school, going to classes, participating in extra curricular activities to build those relationships and to build a lot of those trust models that school advocates and school officials have spoken about as kind of the cornerstone to to youth mental health.

This would not only hire and retain more of those professionals, but help them to build out that relationship.

Five years down the road, ten years down the road, so that when kids graduate from these schools could come back and see these therapists as somebody that they could use throughout the rest of their lives as role models and mentors to help them through good and bad times.

And finally, what are schools and students at large saying about the fact that this money will be available and hopefully programs that weren't in place before will now be there for them?

You know, school officials and advocates that I've spoken to, spoken with, have really said that this is a huge step in the right direction, as well as lawmakers you know, that this is much needed and long overdue when it comes to school mental health for kids to be able to not only relate to their peer groups and their friends, but also relate to a counselor or a school psychologist who understands the community that they come from.

As one advocate said, it makes all the difference in the world in the life of a child.

So folks are really excited about this next step from who I've spoken with.

All right.

Bobby Brier, our pleasure speaking with you.

Thanks so much, Bobby.

Thank you, Briana.