This article was written by Scott Girard and originally appeared in The Cap Times.

Students in the Madison Metropolitan School District will have more mental health support over the next five years as part of a partnership with the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Using a $6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, UW–Madison will recruit and train 24 new school psychology graduate students over four years, with six each year. Those students will complete their practicum and internship training in MMSD and upon graduation be required to complete three years of service in a “high-needs, local school,” according to a press release.

“We are thrilled to partner with UW in this effort,” Kristen Guetschow, MMSD director of mental health services, said in the release. “We recognize schools as often being central in the support of students and families in their wellbeing, and the multitude of stressors affecting wellbeing in this moment.

“Training additional school professionals to provide high-quality, culturally relevant supports is timely to support our current school staff engaging in this critical work each day.”

The partnership comes as the district and schools statewide look to prioritize student mental health in the wake of the pandemic. The results of the state Department of Public Instruction’s 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, taken on a voluntary basis in fall 2021, added more evidence to rising rates of mental health issues among youth.

About one-third of respondents, 33.7%, reported they “felt sad or hopeless” almost every day for more than two weeks, “so they stopped doing some usual activities” at some point in the year before taking the survey. That figure is up significantly from a decade ago, when the same survey question had 22.7% of respondents report they felt sad or hopeless.

Gov. Tony Evers has called 2023 “The Year of Mental Health,” and included more than $270 million over the next two years toward school mental health systems in his biennial budget proposal. It’s unclear how much of that will be included in the base budget Republicans have said they’ll write themselves with their control of both houses of the Legislature.

It also could help alleviate some of the hiring and retention challenges schools in Madison have faced over the past two years. Shortages of both permanent and substitute staff have forced some staff members to cover duties outside of their job descriptions, leaving students without necessary services.

The National Association of School Psychologists recommends that schools have one psychologist for every 500 students. The district dedicated 43.8 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff positions for school psychologists in the current school year’s budget, putting them at a one-to-576 student ratio.

While that’s not quite at the recommended ratio, as part of the district’s overall staffing for mental health support positions, it’s in good shape. Social workers, for example, are recommended to have a one-to-250 students ratio by the National Association of Social Workers.

As of a year ago, it was at one-to-592. Even with the addition of 9.4 FTE this year, the district is well short, requiring about 11 additional FTE allocations annually through 2028 to reach the ratio.

According to the press release from UW–Madison’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research, 88% of schools “did not strongly agree they could effectively provide mental health services to all students in need” in a May 2022 National Center for Education Statistics report. They identified three limitations: not enough mental health staff to manage caseloads, inadequate access to licensed mental health professionals and inadequate funding.

“Schools are uniquely positioned to provide mental health services to youth as they reduce barriers to treatment, such as limited access to health insurance or transportation,” the release states. “School-based mental health services have been shown to yield multiple positive outcomes for children, including improved academics, engagement at school, and student well-being.”

The grant will cover tuition, fees, a monthly stipend, transportation and child care costs for new school psychology trainees, as well as funding to hire a full-time school psychologist to supervise the practicum and internship work. Recruitment of new psychology graduate students will have an emphasis on those with minority backgrounds, according to the release.

“We believe that this grant will allow for a gain in services through having high-quality school psychology students training in our schools, by increasing the diversity of our hiring pool and school psychologist team over time, and by creating a pool of applicants which will allow us to fill all our school psychology positions and avoid having vacancies,” Guetschow said.

WCER research and associate professor of educational psychology Katie Eklund said in the release she is “thankful for the ongoing partnership we have with MMSD that makes this grant a reality.”

“Together, we will recruit and train school psychologists from diverse backgrounds that reflect the community, identities, races, ethnicities, abilities, languages, and cultures reflected in Madison schools,” Eklund said. “We are excited to provide additional training on culturally responsive mental health services to current and new school psychologists.”