About the Grantees
The Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) Initiative is a four-year grant program that is funded by the U.S. Departments of Education, Justice, and Health and Human Services. The grant helps school districts, in partnership with mental health providers and juvenile justice agencies, implement projects that address five elements.
- Safe school environments and violence prevention activities
- Alcohol, tobacco, and other drug prevention activities
- Student behavioral, social, and emotional supports
- Mental health services
- Early childhood social and emotional learning programs
Through grants made to local education authorities, the SS/HS Initiative provides schools and communities across the United States with the benefit of enhanced services; this is done in an effort to strengthen healthy child development and thus reduce violent behavior and substance use. To achieve these goals, school districts develop comprehensive strategic plans in partnership with law enforcement officials, local mental health authorities, and juvenile justice officials.
Funded in response to the tragic schools shootings in the late 1990s, the SS/HS Initiative has awarded grants to hundreds of local education agencies in a range of urban, suburban, and rural communities. Many of the programs and services started under this initiative continue through partnerships begun by this program.
