“’I think that it will help us to do a couple of things. One is to increase mental health awareness of our school-aged youth. … To me, it’s also about enhancing what Santa Fe Public Schools already offers,’ said Sue O’Brien, a student wellness coordinator for the district.

O’Brien said the district hopes to use some of the funds to link Native American students with more culturally specific mental and behavioral health services, in part by partnering with Serenity Wellness Center, a local community mental health agency.

During the pandemic, the school district offered services for students who needed individualized mental health support. Now that students are readjusting to in-person classrooms, O’Brien said, some partnering agencies to which schools referred students for therapy have suffered a loss in staffing.”