The Department of Education and the Office for a Safe and Respectful Learning Environment was awarded a $5 million five-year federal grant by the U.S. Department of Education to expand and deliver mental health services to students who have experienced trauma and are uninsured or underinsured. The grant funds support the reimbursement of enrolled providers for the delivery of trauma-specific interventions.

The purpose of the grant program is to enable Nevada preschool, elementary, or secondary students from a family that is low income and who have experienced trauma and subsequently demonstrate academic, behavioral, attendance, or other issues at school to access trauma-specific treatment.

The mission of the grant program is to increase student wellness, adaptive student behavior, school safety and academic performance by supporting trauma-specific treatment.

Eligible students may be home-schooled or enrolled in a Nevada public, private or charter school. Traumatic incidents may be those that occur either within or outside a school environment. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) describes individual trauma as resulting from "an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or life threatening and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual's functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being."

Parents may request services on behalf of their child and choose a provider they feel best meets their child's needs. The provider must be State licensed, provide secular, neutral, non-ideological services that meet reasonable standards for evidence-based, best practices, promising practices and/or evidence-informed trauma-specific treatment, be an approved vendor through the State of Nevada Department of Administration Purchasing Department and be enrolled in NevadaEPro.

Referrals for services may come from many different avenues, there is no wrong door. A parent/guardian may request services on behalf of their child (through school personnel or an enrolled provider), the student may be referred by school staff, or a service provider may identify a student who meets eligibility criteria for services.

There are several reporting measures of the grant. We must report on the student and parents' overall satisfaction with services and assess for change in the student's well-being. The data will be collected through a Student Well-being and a Student and/or Parent Satisfaction Survey, both surveys to be administered at the first service and again after three and six months of treatment. In addition to the two required surveys, student attendance data will be tracked to measure gains/losses over the course of treatment.