by PRP Group, on 03/05/2024
SALT LAKE CITY – The Cook Center for Human Connection has been awarded a $3.99 million Education Innovation and Research (EIR) grant from the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) for its program, “Helping Helpers Help: An Integrated Model for Empowering Educators and Parents as Partners in Supporting Student Wellness and Learning.” The Cook Center is among the first awardees to receive EIR funds for a project with an exclusive focus on mental health and suicide prevention as keys to improving school climate and learning. The program will serve 83 middle schools in New Mexico and Arizona by bridging systemic access inequalities to mental health supports, reducing barriers to learning, and helping educators, parents, and caregivers better support young people’s social-emotional well-being.
The DOE announced $277 million in new grant awards to advance educational equity and innovation, earmarking $87.2 million for programs that support social-emotional well-being, an increase of nearly 20 percent over the previous year. “The Department of Education has recognized that youth mental health is a crisis that threatens the education and well-being of millions of students,” said Anne Brown, CEO and president of the Cook Center. “In a historic move, they have awarded the largest amount of EIR funding to social-emotional learning initiatives, and recognized that our program can provide critical support to underserved communities in addressing mental health challenges that hinder students’ ability to engage and learn.”