Members of the Graduate School of Education will train and place 30 school counselors in four New Jersey schools to help address youth mental health

Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Education (GSE) 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’s 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 Intervention Prevention Project of school counseling.

“School counseling is often a misunderstood and under-resourced profession,” said Ian Levyassistant professor of school counseling at GSE and principal investigator of the project. “Lack of school counseling can compromise youth development and well-being. This project will expand essential mental health prevention and response services by actively reducing the student-school-counselor ratio in some of the fastest-growing and most ethnically diverse school districts in the region..“

right American Association of School Counselorsthe 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 needed resources for students.

Over a five-year funding period, the project will fully cover tuition for 30 new school counselors enrolled in the GSE School Counseling Master’s Program who will be trained and placed in the New Brunswick, Rahway, Franklin Township and Neptune K school districts -12. . Project organizers will prioritize recruiting typically underrepresented students from 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 will also work to develop and implement curriculum for school counseling courses that assist the existing program in its ability to teach culturally appropriate 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 also the need to train school counselors in methods of working with a culturally, racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse student body in schools,” Levy said. “As a result of this project, students will have greater access to school counselors, especially those who can implement culturally appropriate and evidence-based mental health practices.”

Kathy Shoemakerassistant professor of professional practice at GSE, is the project’s co-principal investigator.

cCounseling and Education Consultants will help develop course modules in some of the following content areas:

• Social and Emotional Learning, Racial Justice, and Healing for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students
• Supporting students’ theory and practice in the environment; Participatory action research of youth in school counseling practice
• Creative Expressive Arts in School Counseling Practices; and trauma-informed school counseling

“This grant will allow Dr. Levy and Dr. Shoemaker to ensure that school counselors are not just looking to fix a problem after it has surfaced,” said Christopher Span, dean of GSE. “Instead, school counselors will be able to mitigate the challenges that youth may face before they arise, creating the best possible outcome. This can serve as a very important national model for creating – and proactively implementing – strategies that prepare young people to be their best.”