Addressing the mental health concerns of our students, educators and school leaders is an essential component of recovery and restoration and provides a necessary foundation for accelerated learning. Our investments in this space have built upon existing mental and behavioral health supports and reflect a strong partnership with the DC Department of Behavioral Health (DBH).

Key Strategies​

We are employing the following strategies to promote student and staff wellbeing:​

• Address student mental health needs: Expand mental health services for students in partnership with DBH by helping establish a licensed clinician in every school and expanding a mobile support team to reach youth in crisis across the city while also providing professional development and training to school mental health teams.​
• Invest in educator and leader wellness: Establish a self-service platform with on-demand wellness resources available to all educators in the District, make available executive coaching to school and system leaders and provide grant funding to schools seeking to understand and address the root causes of educator stress.​
• Expand supports for LGBTQ+ students: Create more supportive environments that are inclusive of the health, mental health and social-emotional needs of LGBTQ+ students by equipping schools with necessary knowledge and resources.​
• Strengthen school culture and climate: Procure and launch a district-wide school climate survey that provides comparable data from students, educators and families in all public schools and support schools in addressing identified needs as well as developing social-emotional learning standards for the District.​
• Sustain access to nutritious meals: Ensure access to nutritious meals for students during in-person and distance learning through child nutrition programs and by supporting meal access for all public school students at sites across the community.​
• Support students experiencing homelessness: Provide a competitive grant for community-based organizations to help increase the identification of students experiencing homelessness as well as to strengthen coordination with schools and offer wraparound supports.
• Re-Engage Disengaged Youth: Launch extensive outreach and canvassing efforts to reconnect youth ages 16-24 who have dropped out of secondary school to educational options and other critical services to support their attainment of a high school diploma or GED, and facilitate communities of practice across schools, city agencies and CBO partners to share resources and best practices.