How Tennessee is working to put more mental health professionals in rural schools

A state program aims to bring more school mental health professionals to Tennessee’s rural students.

More than half of Tennessee’s 93 rural school districts don’t have a full-time psychologist or social worker. Project RAISE (Rural Access to Interventions in School Environments) is a state initiative that seeks to place at least one counselor, psychologist and social worker in every rural school district in the state.

Angela Jackson, the director of special education for the Hawkins County School District in East Tennessee, told WPLN News that the shortage of mental health professionals in rural communities is a crisis.

“We’ve had one school psychologist for the past five years,” she said. “Our district has around 6,200 kids. We serve over 1,000 students with special needs.”

She said her school district had to pay the psychologist to work after school hours because there wasn’t enough time in her regular work day to manage all the students. Now, Jackson said things have improved thanks to the resources provided by Project RAISE.

“I really don’t know where Hawkins County would be if we didn’t have this type of support in getting those resources that we can serve our kids,” she said.

Solving a problem

April Ebbinger, the director of school psychological and behavioral services at the Tennessee Department of Education started Project RAISE based on research that rural students have limited access to mental health resources.

Some might have to travel hours to get treatment. Others are put on wait lists — unable to see a mental health professional for months.

Low pay is one of the factors driving the shortage of school counselors in Tennessee. But rural communities fare even worse — unable to match the pay of metropolitan districts. Project RAISE offers internships in school psychology, school counseling, and school social work that pay stipends of up to $60,000 for a two-year commitment in rural schools. The project has placed mental health professionals in about 60 Tennessee counties.

The importance of counseling 

Connie White, a program coordinator at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville who provides support for Project RAISE, told WPLN News that school mental health professionals play critical roles in their students’ well-being. These include providing treatments, referrals, testing and assessments. They also train teachers on how to identify high-risk kids.

“It’s very important and we’re missing that in a lot of rural school districts,” she said.

Project RAISE is funded by federal grants and includes a partnership between the Tennessee Department of Education and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Center for Learning, Education, and Employment. The Trump administration recently cut $1 billion in federal grants that school districts use to hire mental health professionals, like counselors and social workers.

White said Project RAISE didn’t lose funding but these cuts still hurt rural kids.

“So, we are really sorry to see that,” she said. “But it makes Project RAISE and the other programs that continue to exist that much more critical.”