Utah Nonprofit Receives EIR Grant from U.S. Department of Education for Youth Mental Health Program

SALT LAKE CITY – He Cook Center for Human Connection has received a $3.99 million Educational 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 Students Wellness and Learning”. The Cook Center is among the first awardees to receive EIR funding 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 reducing systemic inequalities in access to mental health supports, reducing barriers to learning, and helping educators, parents, and caregivers better support the social-emotional well-being of youth.

The DOE announced $277 million in new grants to advance educational equity and innovation, and directed $87.2 million to programs that support social-emotional well-being, an increase of nearly 20 percent from 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 awarded the largest amount of EIR funding to social-emotional learning initiatives and recognized that our program can provide critical support to underserved communities to address mental health challenges that hinder students' ability to participate and learn”.

The Cook Center model focuses on protective factors for youth mental health and suicide prevention in which schools and parents play a critical role. Through the grant, schools will participate in Parent Guide.org, which includes personalized training for all parents of school-age children, interactive mental health webinar series hosted by trained professionals, and a library of on-demand online courses taught by licensed therapists. Teachers and school staff will also participate in professional development sessions to complement the resources available to parents.

In 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics declared a national emergency, noting that child and adolescent health professionals are “caring for youth with increasing rates of depression, anxiety, trauma, loneliness, and suicidality that will have lasting impacts on them and your families. and their communities.” Mental health factors have become especially formidable barriers to learning after the pandemic, intensifying the national imperative for innovation to better support student mental health and well-being.

“The grants will fund some of the country's most promising efforts to raise the bar for academic recovery, excellence and equity in education,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cordona. “All of this year's recipients are pioneering engaging, evidence-based strategies to close opportunity gaps and provide young people with the engaging and impactful learning experiences they deserve so they can achieve at high levels.”

Investigation has established that school-based mental health and suicide programs that involve parents can increase the effectiveness of all interventions. The Cook Center's newly funded project will address two areas of great need: New Mexico, which has the second-highest suicide rate in the country; and Arizona, where the suicide rate is 35% higher than the national rate. The EIR grant will advance the Cook Center model through pilot testing and iterative improvements, new culturally and linguistically responsive resources, and rigorous evaluation that addresses critical research gaps.

Although only two years old, the Cook Center model has already been adopted by 229 districts and 3,617 schools, offering more than 2.4 million families access to services in 37 states. The grant offers an opportunity to accelerate adoption. To learn more about the Cook Center's work and its resources, visit CookCenterforHumanConnection.org.

About the Cook Center for Human Connection

The Cook Center's mission is to bring together the best organizations, programs and products to prevent suicide, support mental health, and improve the human connections vital for people to thrive. The foundation's current focus is supporting children, families and schools with youth mental health resources and the goal of ending suicide. This work is accomplished through various grants to schools, parenting programs, and global resources to raise awareness of the support needed for those affected by mental health and suicide needs. Their free resources created to support children's mental health and suicide prevention include My life is worth living, the first animated series about teen mental health and suicide prevention, and Parent Guide.org, a mental health resource that gives parents the tools to have important conversations at home. Content includes free on-demand courses taught by licensed therapists and family mental health nights hosted by trained professionals. Get more information at CookCenterforHumanConnection.org.

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