The following story originally appeared on the W&M School of Education website. – Ed.

The William & Mary School of Education’s School Psychology program has been awarded $3 million to address the ongoing mental health crisis among youth.

The Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant was awarded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Elementary & Secondary Education and the Office of Safe & Supportive Schools.

The landmark funding will be allocated over five years from 2025 to 2029 to support “Training Empowered Advocates for Mental Health in Schools,” or Project TEAMS, designed to build a sustainable pipeline of diverse, highly trained school psychologists dedicated to serving high-needs K-12 school divisions in Virginia.

Associate Dean, Director of Inclusive Excellence and Associate Professor of School Psychology Leandra Parris is Principal Investigator (PI) of the program with Associate Professor of School Psychology Janise Parker serving as co-PI. Other co-investigators at the W&M School of Education include Clinical Assistant Professor in Counselor Education Bianca Augustine, John W. & Sue H. Gerdelman Associate Professor of Education in School Psychology Ryan McGill and Visiting Instructor in School Psychology Rachel Sleeth. Regional consultants on the project include Oshan Gadsden and Vanessa Goodar of Hampton University.

Project TEAMS responds directly to the urgent need for mental health resources in Virginia schools, where access to services ranks among the lowest in the U.S. The state currently ranks 48th in mental health services for children and youth.

“Even before the pandemic, the surgeon general had declared a national mental health crisis among youth. When the pandemic happened, it just made everything worse,” said Parris.

Compounding this issue, Virginia’s school districts are severely understaffed with a state ratio of one school psychologist for every 1,623 students — far from the recommended ratio of one per 500 students. This shortage is even more pronounced in the regional partnering school divisions, including Newport News, Norfolk and Chesapeake.

“On the one hand, we have a massive mental health crisis that’s impacting the ability of students to learn and to be successful, and on the other, we don’t have enough people to mitigate or prevent harm,” said Parris.

In response, Project TEAMS aims to bolster student mental health while also building sustainable infrastructure within the partner school divisions. The work will be structured around a three-pronged approach: targeted mental health interventions for youth; recruitment of diverse school psychologists to enhance workforce capacity; and retention of diverse school psychologists within partnered school districts. The project will employ multi-tiered, trauma-informed practices, providing local schools with tools to effectively support student needs at different levels.

“There’s a recruitment piece with the goal of bringing more diverse school psychologists into the field, but then there’s also the service piece, in terms of what we’re actually doing day-to-day to help K-12 students,” said Parker. “It’s a multifaceted approach because we’re addressing various levels of need. We are essentially using a public health-based model to address needs across multiple layers from prevention to intervention.”

Undergraduate and graduate students will fulfill internship and practicum requirements while also providing mental health support to K-12 students. To actively recruit and retain diverse school psychologists, Project TEAMS will implement a pipeline program in collaboration with local Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) and HBCUS, including Hampton University, Norfolk State University, and Old Dominion University, as well as Virginia Peninsula Community College and undergraduate programs at William & Mary. This includes early career support and mentorship opportunities aimed at fostering long-term commitment among school psychologists in Virginia’s underserved communities.

“A great deal of my work focuses on supporting early career school mental health professionals, and I’ve learned how much beginning school psychology students benefit from mentorship,” said Parker. “How do you prevent burnout in the helping professions, especially as you transition into the field as a professional mental health provider? How do you navigate things like imposter syndrome and the research-to-practice gap when you learn all these theories in your graduate program and then you get hit with the reality of day-to-day work? Through this grant project, recipients will be able to access support and training to prevent burnout and practice self-care, wellness and supporting each other.”

To provide sustainable, lasting support within school systems, Project TEAMS faculty experts will scale up their combined current offerings of crisis training, community engagement and trauma-informed practices. The project represents the culmination of years of research, scholarship and interventions, both individually and collectively as a program. For example, as the only certified PREPaRE crisis intervention trainer in this region, Parris spends a significant amount of time offering training to meet immediate needs. With Project TEAMS, she will build the pool of certified trainers and expand crisis prevention and intervention resources throughout the state.

Parker’s expertise centers around community engagement and serving students and families from culturally diverse backgrounds. She has led impactful programs like Project Empower and the S.O.S. program, which have grown into the C.A.R.E. Lab at the W&M School of Education.

“The vision of the C.A.R.E. Lab is to create an interdisciplinary hub where faculty, students and staff can come together to produce scholarship and provide services in the community, particularly to address mental health disparities,” said Parker.

C.A.R.E. Lab initiatives gave the directors a chance to experiment and learn how to successfully engage school psychology students, connect with community partners and collaborate with local school districts.

“This grant is a dream come true for me because it’s the result of years of listening to students and teachers in the field, but especially students,” said Parker. “They’ve shared their challenges and needs, and what they’ve said has informed how we designed Project TEAMS. Now, we can provide the kinds of supports they identified as helpful.”

Parris added: “Our work is deeply rooted in the community. We are committed to training school psychologists who understand the real needs of classrooms and who feel equipped and motivated to stay in these communities and provide the mental health support that students desperately need.”

The William & Mary School of Education remains steadfast in its commitment to providing programs that serve the Commonwealth and the profession. Project TEAMS is an embodiment of that mission, bringing lasting, sustainable change to Virginia’s youth mental health landscape.