Confronting the Mental Health Crisis in Our Schools

The U.S. Department of Education has awarded Florida International University a $6 million grant to train school-based psychologists and social workers in an effort to improve access to mental health services for Miami-Dade County Public Schools students – money that will go a long way toward helping graduate students in those areas cover the costs of their education.

The Project Demonstration Innovative Grant, or DIG, is a five-year grant designed to address the national shortage of professionals in this arena of mental health, particularly in underserved communities with historically limited access to such services. It incentivizes grantees to pursue degrees in those sectors by covering in-state tuition and stipends during practicum and internships.

The stipends – $25 per hour for social work and psychology practicums and social work internships, and $35 per hour for school psychology internships – help offset school and living expenses. At the same time, participants gain field experience in public schools.

FIU has high hopes the program will boost the alarmingly low number of school psychologists and social workers available to help local students.

The crisis in Florida

“We’re not producing enough school psychologists to meet the demand. We don’t have as many programs in Florida, and a number of school psychologists are retiring or leaving the school system,” said Andy Pham, director of Project DIG. “We’re trying to close that gap, and when it comes to Florida we only have six or seven programs. When compared to New York or California, it isn’t enough.”

There are approximately 240 universities offering school psychologist graduate programs in the United States, with several states limited to less than five or none at all, which means not enough of these paraprofessionals are being produced to meet demand.

And the Sunshine State is nowhere near approaching the recommended national ratio of psychologists to students. According to the Florida Association of School Psychologists, the state average was one school psychologist for nearly 2,000 students in 2016. As of 2022, the state’s ratio had slightly decreased to 1,856 students per school psychologist.

Shortages within specific Florida counties have grown increasingly critical. M-DCPS currently has a ratio of nearly 1,600 students per school psychologist, far from the recommended national ratio of one for every 500. County social workers face an even heavier burden of more than 2,000 students per social worker – the recommend national ratio is one per 250.

“School psychologists are essential, and mental health services are part of health services that need to be included in any school,” said Philip Lazarus, co-director of Project DIG. “We can see that there have been significant mental health concerns among our nation’s youth, especially during COVID-19, so we believe it’s an essential service.”

Aspiring school psychologists have observed the growing need for proper mental health services. Shammahbel Saint-Louis, a student recently admitted into Project DIG, says she understands how vital school psychologists are as a product of the M-DCPS system herself.

“My mother is an elementary school teacher and she tells me how these children need help desperately because she sees it firsthand,” said Saint-Louis, who signed up for Project DIG in part because she believes low-income and bilingual students aren’t catered to in the public school system.

In addition to being privy to her mother’s experience, Saint-Louis says that working as a teacher’s assistant at St. Rose of Lima School in Miami Shores and with an after-care program at North Miami Beach Public Library further fueled her desire to work with children.

“I always knew I wanted a career in the psychology field,” she said. “I read a study that said most students access their mental health services within schools, so I thought the best way to help children is to become a school psychologist.”

Lesline Charles, a first-year graduate student in school psychology and a graduate research assistant, also highlighted the importance of providing mental health services at a young age.

“When students are in the early stages, I find it’s a lot easier to guide and help them receive the services and early interventions they need,” she said. “In the future, when they reach middle school, they have foundational learning knowledge and better behavioral habits to help them succeed.”

Charles’ exposure to people with disabilities through a private group home and her experience working in charter schools prepared her for a life of service; undergraduate research while at FIU led her to school psychology. Her training is being funded through another U.S. Department of Education-funded program, Project SPECIAL, which allows her to work with special education teachers.

According to Pham, one reason behind the shortage of school psychologists and social workers is a lack of awareness of what the professions entail.

Mental health services in schools

School psychologists and social workers form a support team with a school’s administration that helps students and their families navigate anxiety, depression, substance abuse and suicidal ideation, issues that reached a tipping point due to stress over school shootings and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Those support teams can provide preventive services and classroom assessments of children and families as early as elementary school, all to improve the mental health of children in schools.

“In school psychology, we assess students to determine what they’re struggling with, whether it’s academically, behaviorally or socially,” said Brittany Sealy, a third-year Project SPECIAL graduate student. “From there, we can decide if students have a learning disorder to get the support they need in school and provide them with the right resources to succeed. We meet with families to explain why a child may be struggling, provide the right answers and help out.”

Sealy is currently an intern working directly with more than 50 M-DCPS students between three schools under the guidance of a supervisor. Most, if not all, of her students are Black or Hispanic. Like Charles, she has a strong desire to help others and always felt she had a high degree of empathy toward young people.

FIU’s school psychology graduate student population is between 15-20% Black and typically female. Project DIG hopes to recruit more diverse candidates.

“School psychologists in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools system are servicing a diverse population of students,” said Saint-Louis. “I think it’s important for all faculty, especially school psychologists, to look like the children they service because representation matters. You can understand certain things better when you’re from that culture.”

Sealy also emphasizes the importance of having more Black and brown school psychologists to understand the students they assist and represent minority students in the schools she works with, one of the many reasons she decided to pursue her degree. She hopes to give back and inspire others.

“It’s imperative that school psychologists look like the nation at large. Maybe only 15% of school psychologists are males, and we don’t necessarily have the minority population we need to serve our minority students,” said Lazarus. “These students are more vulnerable as it relates to income disparities, so they may not get their psychological services outside of school, and we want to make sure they get their services (so they can) be successful.”

School psychologists also help students with behavioral challenges or neurodevelopmental disorders like ADHD or autism, which Sealy currently does through her school rotations. Working in these spaces, she says she sees Black and Hispanic students overly represented due to referrals made by teachers who often don’t understand how to work with them, particularly older white teachers.

“I want to make sure I’m doing right by the students and not labeling them to get them out of the classroom,” she said. “That’s my big goal as a school psychologist – just make sure students and their families get the help and resources they deserve.”

Tackling stigma

According to Pham, the school psychology program aims to train future school psychologists to support students from diverse backgrounds and collaborate with families to deal with preconceived notions of mental health services. The program teaches graduate students how to navigate different cultural and religious beliefs.

Social work students attend training focused on working with LGBTQ+ youth with anxiety – among many other challenges – to enrich their knowledge of student needs in schools, says Jennifer Abeloff, co-principal investigator on Project DIG and an associate director of social work at FIU.

“There can be a stigma and religious interpretations of mental illness that can come in sometimes,” said Abeloff. “Families of different cultures accept services differently, and it’s important to teach our students how to engage with them to make sure they respect cultures while also providing appropriate services for the child.”

How grants help

While Florida experiences understaffing and a lack of funding for youth mental health services, grants for Project DIG, according to Lazarus, can mitigate the issue by providing resources for people who wish to join the mental health field. However, that $6 million the program was awarded does not immediately solve the shortage crisis.

“The hope with any grant like this is that you’re changing hearts and minds, and the commitment to the provisions of these vital services is recognized as you increase the number of school social workers and psychologists, " said Abeloff. “Then the systems are willing to commit further, so social workers aren’t serving (just) five schools. The shortage crisis won’t solve itself. All the systems working together have to be willing to put in the investment, not just financially, but also the professional investment.”

FIU is currently taking applications for Project DIG for the fall semester; learn more at CASE.FIU.edu.

A critical shortage

• In Miami-Dade County Public Schools, there’s just one school psychologist for every 1,600 students – the recommended national ratio is 1 per 500.

• For every 2,000 students there is just one social worker, a number that falls far short of the recommended national ratio of 1 per 250.