By: Ashmar Mandou

The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and the Center for Childhood Resilience (CCR) at Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago announced a statewide partnership to promote mental health, called the Resilience Education to Advance Community Healing (REACH) Statewide Initiative. “Our initial partnership with the Center for Childhood Resilience allowed us to learn a lot about districts’ needs – from destigmatizing mental health care for educators to evidence-based approaches to addressing students’ trauma,” said State Superintendent of Education Dr. Carmen I. Ayala. “The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the need for more resources and attention directed at mental health and social-emotional well-being for both our students and education practitioners.”

The research-based REACH model includes accumulating a cross-functional team; conducting a needs assessment to pinpoint gaps in trauma-informed practices; and developing and implementing a data-driven strategic plan to support students’ social-emotional learning and mental health, according to the release. Fifty-two schools participated in the REACH program launched last year. The schools formed REACH school teams to implement evidence-informed strategies to promote resiliency and community in their schools. 

“Every major child mental health organization has declared youth mental health a national public health emergency,” said REACH Project Director Mashana Smith, Ph.D., a psychologist and mental health consultant with CCR and an assistant professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. “The REACH statewide initiative prepares and empowers schools to strengthen trauma-responsive practices that meet the social and emotional needs of students and the invaluable educators who serve them.” The expansion of the REACH initiative builds on the state’s ongoing commitment to support mental health and social-emotional development and resources already available, including: 

Community Partnership Grants totaling $86.4 million that fund partnerships between school districts and community health providers to address the trauma that students and educators have experienced during the pandemic. 

A $1 million mental health grant for four high-need school districts to increase access to mental health services. 

REACH virtual training available to all Illinois educators with 4,400 virtual learning experiences completed so far on the impact of trauma on children and adolescents, the intersection between race and trauma, crisis response strategies, educator self-care, and schoolwide policies and classroom practices to build resiliency among students. 

Public Act 102-0321, effective Jan. 1, 2022, which requires school districts to provide students with up to five mental health days as excused absences.