In parts of rural upstate New York, schools have more than 1,100 students for every mental health provider. In a far-flung region with little public transportation, those few school counselors often are the only mental health professionals available to students.
Hennessey Lustica has been overseeing grant-funded efforts to train and hire more school psychologists, counselors, and social workers in the Finger Lakes region, but those efforts may soon come to end — a casualty of the Trump administration’s decision to cancel school mental health grants around the country.
“Cutting this funding is just going to devastate kids,” said Lustica, project director of the Wellness Workforce Collaborative in the Seneca Falls Central School District. “The workforce that we’re developing, just in my 21