The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) has been awarded a $7.5 million, five-year Project AWARE grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to strengthen school behavioral health systems and expand access to mental health supports for students.
The 2026–2031 award will bring Project AWARE Cohort 3 to Ashe County Schools, Carteret County Public Schools and Person County Schools. The initiative will support comprehensive, three-tiered school behavioral health systems focused on prevention and early intervention, access to treatment, crisis response, workforce development, family and youth engagement, and partnerships with community behavioral health providers.
“This new investment allows us to build on eight years of Project AWARE work in North Carolina while helping three additional communities develop sustainable systems that support student mental health and well-being,” said Dr. Heidi E. Austin, NC Project AWARE/ACTIVATE Director.
Project AWARE supports the work of NCDPI and the State Board of Education outlined in Pillar 4: Ensure Healthy, Safe and Secure Learning Environments of their strategic plan, Achieving Educational Excellence. It provides funding for projects that support a comprehensive approach to school mental health, connects students and families to services, and strengthens prevention and crisis-response systems.
The districts in Project AWARE Cohort 3 will build on the work of six other school districts that participated in previous Project AWARE cohorts: Beaufort County Schools, Cleveland County Schools, Rockingham County Schools, Jackson County Public Schools, Sampson County Schools and Nash County Public Schools. The new cohort will continue the longstanding partnership between NCDPI and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
Since 2018, North Carolina's Project AWARE districts have created or revised 91 school mental health policies, trained more than 53,000 educators and school personnel and established 94 formal agreements with community mental health providers to strengthen access to care and developed sustainable financing strategies.