The St. Clair County School District announced recently that the district and its community partners have been awarded a four-year grant from the Federal Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative to reduce youth violence, increase mental health services, and create a safe environment for all children in Odenville schools. The Initiative is also known as Save Our Children.

“We are excited and grateful for this opportunity to provide violence prevention and school safety resources to our community’s schools and families,” said Jenny Seals, St. Clair County Superintendent. “The Safe Schools/Healthy Students grant will help us reduce barriers to learning and teach our children positive social skills that will accompany them throughout their lives and enable them to make wise choices.”

Building on the Initiative’s collaborative framework, Save Our Children’s mission brings together students, parents, educators, mental health agencies, local law enforcement, and other community-based organizations to talk about violence prevention. In turn, Save Our Children and its partners will work to create a safe school environment that addresses prevention and intervention needs for violence and substance abuse issues, provides mental health services to students in need, offers early childhood development services, and establishes safe school policies.

Save Our Children will be collaborating with the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department to hire two school resource officers for the Odenville Schools. The school resource officers will deter school violence, assist administration with some discipline issues, assist with teaching approved drug and violence prevention curriculum in the classroom, and be available to assist students. In addition, Save Our Children will be collaborating with JBS Mental Health Authority to employee school based mental health workers. Case management, therapy, and psychiatric services will be provided for referred students.

By reaching out to students and families in our community through Safe Schools/Healthy Students programs, Save Our Children is working collaboratively to spread the word that violence prevention works and that it can make a difference in the lives of our children.

The Federal Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative has funded more than 300 urban, suburban, rural, and tribal areas nationwide since 1999. This grant is the result of a unique collaboration among the U.S. Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice and was created in response to rising concerns about youth violence and school safety. Each grant site determines how funds can best be used within the community to link new and existing services. Partnership between schools and communities creates a coordinated, cooperative effort that recognizes the complexity of youth violence and its root causes. Using programs and services that have a proven track record of success, as well as strategies for both prevention and intervention, the Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative helps reduce the risk factors that come between children of all ages and their ability to learn—and to stay safe and healthy.

For more information on the Federal Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative, visit http://www.sshs.samhsa.gov. For more information on St. Clair County’s Safe Schools/Healthy Students grant, programs, and services, contact DeAna Byrd at (205) 629-6222 ext. 247, deana.byrd@sccboe.org, and stclaircommunityed.org.