OU Bridging Mental Health Gap In Rural Education With $5.6M Grant

Oklahoma rural schools face a critical need for mental health professionals, and they can be hard to find. A program provided by the University of Oklahoma will pay for the tuition for educators who want to help children on a deeper level. 

Communities where few people live often get the least help for their problems. 

“We’ve gotta address this shortage,” Brittany Hott, OU Associate Professor of Special Education, said. “Oklahoma, it ranks among the bottom.” 

Rural schools face many problems, among them is staffing challenges. 

“They do so much with what they have,” Julie Atwood, a research scientist, and behavioral analyst, said. 

Rural teachers can feel like they’re spread too thin because they’re doing more than teaching children.   

“You may be the only math teacher, and you also might be driving the school bus and coaching basketball,” Hott said. 

Behavioral Analyst Jasmine Justus knows the feeling.  

“I was teaching kindergarten and I was very overwhelmed,” Justus said. 

Justus and Hott grew up in small towns 

“I’m a product of rural schools,” Hott said. “I’m born and raised in Beaverdam, Virginia. There are more cows than people there.”  

A 2022 America’s School Mental Health Report Card shows Oklahoma struggled, ranking in the bottom ten for mental health resources from 2015 to 2021. Last year, it improved to 28.

However, the report estimates 54,000 Oklahoma children live with major depression. About 30,000 of these children do not receive treatment.  

“I know a lot of parents and students who are on wait lists for a long period of time,” Atwood said. 

Hott and her OU education team received a $5.6 million grant.  

“We are so excited,” she said. 

Over the next five years, the grant will help train 64 future mental health professionals who already serve in rural schools.  

“A lot of times when you’re getting your supervised fieldwork you have to pay for that, and it becomes really costly,” Atwood said. 

This grant will cover these costs.  

“We’re past the celebration and we’re on to the hard work,” Hott said.

Lessons learned at OU will help to better serve the young minds inside rural schools.   

“We want them to be able to go out into the world and do what they want,” Justus said.

Their goal is to create peace of mind in communities, no matter how big or how small.

School districts that have at least 20% poverty rates and meet the federal census criteria for rural schools qualify for the program. The first group of students who will receive training for behavioral analysts and counselors will begin next fall. The first group of social workers will begin this semester.