Bringing Mental Wellness to Classrooms Nationwide

Since 2019, the Child Mind Institute’s School and Community Programs team has partnered with Ravenswood City School District to offer comprehensive mental health services to school communities.

“The Child Mind Institute’s School and Community Programs are filling a need in our district, particularly during the pandemic,” says Gina Sudaria, superintendent of Ravenswood City School District. “It’s been truly invaluable to expand our resources to identify kids who face traumas stemming from things like migration, violence, drug use or parents who struggle with their own mental health, then provide specialized supports to those kids.”

The School and Community Programs team works with schools where mental health needs are high, resources are low, and school staff consistently report a lack of mental health training and support. To date, we’ve reached over 60,000 public school students, parents, teachers and mental health professionals with treatment, training, and resources.

“Having a mental health skill-building program made available school-wide, alongside resources to help teachers learn about the impact of trauma, is so useful,” explains Ms. Sudaria.

As remote learning continued during the 2020–21 school year, we provided all our services virtually. This school year, we’re reaching students in person during the school day. At the same time, we’re continuing to offer both in-person and remote services for educators and caregivers, to make it as convenient as possible for them to engage.

This fall, the State of California announced a landmark partnership with the Child Mind Institute for the California Healthy Minds, Thriving Kids Project. This initiative builds on the School and Community Programs team’s success with partners like Ravenswood City School District and aims to address the mental health impacts and learning gaps brought on by the pandemic. Through the creation of a suite of bilingual English and Spanish-language videos and resources that will be available in January 2022, this partnership provides a blueprint to scale our work nationwide and has the potential to reach 300,000 teachers and 6 million students across California.