Students in southcentral and eastern Kentucky are getting additional help when it comes to their mental health. The Southeast South-Central Kentucky Educational Cooperative will receive around six million dollars over the next five years to help identify and treat mental health problems.
Renee Hibbard is one of the mental health access grant leads at the cooperative. She said part of the services they hope to offer will include future mental health professionals.
“Southeast South-central will partner with some of our university and mental health training program to locate graduate students that are enrolled in those mental health programs, and we will place those mental health graduate students in schools in our region to help deliver direct service to the students.”
Hibbard said a crucial part of the program is to pair mental health professionals and graduate students with schools in their service region to help out the younger students.
“One of the overall goals is to get those professionals to stay in that region to be able to provide that long-term care.”
Hibberd said they serve 25 different school districts. She hopes to help over 16,000 students throughout the course of the five years they will be receiving funds.
** WEKU is working hard to be a leading source for public service, fact-based journalism. Monthly sustaining donors are the top source of funding for this growing nonprofit news organization. Please join others in your community who support WEKU by making your donation.
