MAINE, USA — In 2023 the Maine Department of Education received $9 million dollars in funding through the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act for schools to improve access to mental healthcare for students.
Two years since the program began, mental health professionals have been hired in all of the selected districts, but administrators say they are not sure how they will sustain the services when the money runs out.
Only two of the nine districts have been able to hire a daily mental health professional in all schools, and administrators say it is still a struggle to find providers willing to work in remote parts of the state.
“School counselors and general education social workers are definitely areas where we are lacking,” said Karen Paquette, assistant superintendent of Lewiston Public Schools, which received the most funding of the districts.
The nine districts selected to receive the funding span the state, from the western Maine towns of Franklin and Jay to Presque Isle in the north and Lubec in the east.
The districts received annual grants ranging from $63,208 to $248,644 based on the student population size. The districts receiving the money were identified as “high need” because they had low student to mental health provider ratios relative to the rest of the state and nation.
The money, some of which has already been distributed, will be split between funding to support new and existing staff ($5 million) and funding retention and recruitment efforts for providers ($4 million), according to the Maine Department of Education.
So far, $2 million has been distributed to the districts identified as having the fewest school-based mental health providers in the state.
Mark Hatch, assistant superintendent of Regional School Unit (RSU) 54, has seen families in the area struggle to get their children counseling at all. His district covers the rural communities of southern Somerset County, including Norridgewock and Skowhegan, where many practices are already at capacity with clients and long wait lists bog down the system.
“There’s not a lot of places to go for counseling,” Hatch said. “It can be months and months before you (can) access somebody who has openings for those supports.”
The money comes as students are increasingly struggling with mental health issues.
In 2023, nearly one in every five high school students in the state reported seriously considering suicide over the past year compared to one in every six students before the pandemic, according to the Maine Integrated Health Survey. The pandemic exacerbated mental health issues among students and adults alike.
In Lewiston, the mass shooting last fall added another layer of strain on students.
“We need to find ways to support them for that,” Paquette said.
In Lubec, RSU 85 has used the new funds to hire its first school counselor. In Aroostook County, RSU 79 has been able to hire clinicians in each of its six K-12 and technical schools.
“Since we are a rural community with an overburdened mental health care system, our schools are often the only place (where) students are receiving mental health support,” said Jennifer Bourassa, curriculum director for RSU 79, in an email.
Administrators said the new counselors in their schools have resulted in more students being served and shorter waitlists for services. According to the grant’s annual performance reports, in-school providers reported feeling more supported by their administrators, which administrators hope will mean they’ll stay in their jobs.
The $4 million that will be directed at retention efforts will go toward providing professional development opportunities to current providers as well as scholarships for graduate-level students at University of Maine schools who are interested in pursuing the positions and clinical supervision for current providers, according to the performance reports completed by the districts.
“(The funding has) elevated (the districts’) ability to provide services to students within their schools and communities, which has made a huge impact overall for them,” said Bethany Cunningham, who is coordinating the grant for the state.
“A weight off their mind”
District administrators like Paquette and Hatch say they’ve seen a rising demand for mental health support in their schools. Waitlists for counseling are long and daunting, and having a mental health professional on campus with enough time to work with students has been hard to come by.
Libby Wright, youth education director for the National Alliance for Mental Illness in Maine, said it’s important that students have easy access to providers and that consistent access to school-based mental health services and early intervention is linked to improved student achievement, social-emotional growth, and overall well-being.
“If we’re telling them to reach out and ask for help when they need it and then they don’t have somebody available to have those conversations, that could actually cause more harm,” said Wright. “They need those resources readily available to have those conversations.”
Parents of children attending schools in RSU 54 have been excited about having the new providers available in school, said Superintendent Hatch.
“It’s been a weight off their mind.”
Jamie Pratt, associate dean of the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Southern Maine, said there are many benefits to school-based mental health services.
“(Students are) at school. We have to meet them where they’re at,” Pratt said. “When the services are available within schools, you’re removing so many barriers, (and) there tends to be less stigma.”
Last year Pratt devoted a research project to understanding the job satisfaction of many psychologists throughout the state and found that providers with more responsibilities have less time to establish comprehensive, prevention-based approaches than areas with lower student-to-counselor ratios.
Pratt said that the most effective counseling methods — like consistent check-ins and support — are sidelined when providers are pulled away and tasked with other duties, such as monitoring tests and administrative work for the school.
“(School-based providers are) focused more on the psychoeducational evaluation work,” Pratt said. “They don’t have the flexibility to engage in more of that prevention-focused schoolwide mental health promotion, intervention and support.”
The state legislature has considered multiple bills to improve student mental health and increase the number of in-school clinicians over the past few years, including LD 2002, which would have devoted $2.7 million over two years to school-based social workers and family therapists. The bill was approved but ultimately left unfunded and will be carried over into the next session this January.
Pratt said providers can only address certain behaviors in advance when they have the time to implement prevention-based approaches, which is more effective than a reactive-only approach.
“Those ratios really are needed to provide the comprehensive approach,” Dr. Pratt said.
Sweetser, an agency that hires providers directly into schools, also provides supplemental counseling services on campuses for students interested in additional support. The nonprofit had 80 clinicians in 25 districts last year. That number was cut by more than half this year, to 29 clinicians, said spokesperson Justin Chenette, after the program ran a deficit of more than a million dollars.
“This program needs a financial overhaul or it will not survive,” said Chenette, adding that there are 76 students on the waitlist for the services currently. “That’s 76 kids who are not getting what they need and their families need.”
Increasing the pipeline
One of the goals of the grant program — known by the acronym “EASE” for Expanding Access in School Environments — is to create reliable career pathways that keep educators in their communities, said Megan Welter, who serves as associate commissioner for education.
“The state of Maine is very rural, and it’s a very big place,” said Welter. “Schools could be extremely disparate and very, very geographically spread out.”
In addition to the EASE funds, the University of Southern Maine was also awarded a five-year, $1.6 million grant to support school psychologists in rural areas through a “grow-your-own” approach by awarding scholarships and specialized training opportunities for psychologists in rural communities.
The grant will offer tuition reimbursement and stipends to support the preparation of 22 graduate students for state credentialing as school psychologists. It will also support 15 current educators in rural areas through an online residency program where they can complete coursework by practicing in their own schools.
The time and cost to earn a master’s degree in the field, which is a requirement to provide school-based mental health services, can be a barrier for many of those who are interested in the field, and can make filling rural town positions with credentialed providers more challenging.
At the national level, Sen. Angus King has co-sponsored the federal Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Act, which would support in-school providers nationwide through a five-year renewable grant program.
Paquette, from Lewiston, said trying to keep providers with adequate funding is a “constant battle,” as the loss of the grant will mean the financial responsibility for the new positions is placed on the local budget.
“It consumes a lot of time,” said Paquette. “It would definitely be helpful if there (were) ongoing funds to support the mental health of our students and of our staff.”
The big question will be whether providers will stay in their jobs after the grant funding runs out.
“Being able to keep those providers in place and keep those services for students consistent beyond the term of the grant would be a huge success for us,” said Welter.
This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. To get regular coverage from the Monitor, sign up for a free Monitor newsletter here.
