WESTERN MONTANA PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COLLABORATIVE
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  • Menu of Courses, Workshops and School Services
    • INCREASE EQUITY STUDENT SERVICES Grant >
      • Mental Health Resource Navigator
    • Courses, Workshops & Conferences >
      • 2023 Montana AP® Summer Institute >
        • AP® Biology
        • AP® Chemistry
        • AP® English Literature and Composition
        • AP® Environmental Science
        • AP® Precalculus
        • AP® Statistics
        • AP® U.S. Government and Politics
        • AP® US History
        • AP® Summer Institute FAQs 2023
        • AP Summer Institute Scholarships 2023
      • August Institute 2023 >
        • Schedule 2023
        • August Institute Hotel Blocks 2023
        • August Institute Credit Options 2023
        • List of Blackfoot Schools
        • August Institute Missoula College Floor Plan maps
      • Indian Education for All >
        • IEFA (1 credit courses) >
          • Dance House
          • In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse
          • My Indian Boyhood
          • Native American Literature Glencoe
          • #NotYourPrincess
        • IEFA (2 credit courses) >
          • American Indian Literature K-8
          • American Indian Literature 9-12
          • Art and Literature IEFA Integration K-5
          • Boarding School Era
          • Early Childhood Literature in IEFA
          • History of Indigenous Resistance Movements
          • History of the Flathead Reservation
          • IEFA and the Visual Arts (2021-22)
          • Montana Tribal Histories
          • Native American Representation in Cinema and Popular Culture
          • Seasonal Rounds of the Salish
          • Seven Essential Understandings
        • IEFA (3 credit courses) >
          • American Indian Sovereignty
          • Current Events in Indian Country
          • Foundations of IEFA
          • Plants in MT Native Cultures
        • IEFA (5 credit courses) >
          • Birchbark House
        • IEFA Special Topics/Author Studies (1-5 credits) >
          • IEFA Special Topics 1 >
            • Who Will Tell My Brother?: The Indian Mascot Controversy
            • Honoring Native Women’s Voices
            • American Indian Short Stories
            • American Indian Poetry
            • Biographies of Native Americans
          • IEFA Special Topics 2 >
            • The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
            • Fire on the Land
            • Native American Astronomy
            • An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People
            • If I Ever Get Out of Here
          • Native American Author Studies
      • English Language Arts/ Dyslexia/Best Practices >
        • Contemporary Issues: Dyslexia
        • Helping Student Writers
        • Language Study for Teachers
        • Learning from Finland
        • Writing Improvement
      • Gifted & Talented >
        • Exploring SENG
        • Nurturing Individual Potential
        • Overcoming Underachievement in Students
      • Improving Teaching Practices and/or New Teachers >
        • It's Never Too Late
      • Educational Leadership/ Administrators >
        • Introduction to Calibration with 3 Delivery Options
        • MT EPAS Teacher Evaluation on Steroids, May 2023
        • Rural Schools: Supervising Teacher
      • School Climate/ MANDT/ Mindfulness >
        • Introduction to Mindfulness for Educators, April 8, 2023
        • Mindful Practices for Educators
      • VESi Online Courses
    • Special Ed, Mental Health & Medical Billing Services >
      • E-Therapy Special Ed & Mental Health Services >
        • eQUIP
        • eSMART
        • eWELLNESS
      • Montana Medical Billing
    • Technology & More School Savings >
      • Eco Supply
      • Moodle Classrooms for Schools
      • Fiducius Loan Relief
    • About WMPLC/Contact Us >
      • Contact
      • Sign up for our Newsletter
      • About WMPLC
      • Our Team
    • Request Workshops/Consulting >
      • Data-Informed Instructional Practices
      • EPAS
      • Gifted and Talented
      • MANDT
      • Mentor Programs for Schools
      • Mindfulness/Yoga Workshops
      • Reading and Writing Workshops
      • Teach Forward and Calibration
      • Teacher and Principal Evaluation Project

INCREASE EQUITY OF STUDENT SERVICES Grant

Western Montana Professional Learning Collaborative Partners with Montana Small School Alliance to Increase Equity of Student Services
Receives Federal Grant to Deliver Resources and Services to Montana’s Underserved Schools

Lolo, MT – October 13, 2022, Western Montana Professional Learning Collaborative (WMPLC) partnering with the Montana Small School Alliance (MSSA) announces they have received Federal funding to increase the equity of student services for rural, tribal, and frontier schools across the state of Montana. The WMPLC/MSSA partnership aims to serve nearly 150 small school and frontier member districts, as well as tribal schools, by providing counseling supports, mental health services, and proven violence prevention tools desperately needed by students, staff, and families across Montana. The grant will help fund increased access to basic needs resources, trauma-informed care, school counselors, e-therapy assessments, and treatment.

Montana schools have faced a lack of equitable resources, low student enrollment, inadequate financial resources, and difficulty recruiting qualified educators and mental health resources. This has increased the need to improve and provide equitable school-based mental health support and other resources to prevent school violence and student mental health issues. The 2021 Montana Youth Risk Behavior Survey shared that in a one-year time frame, 8.9% of Montana students carried a gun on one or more days (not counting for hunting or for sport.) In that same time frame 23.4% of students seriously considered attempting suicide and 41.4% of students felt so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row that they stopped doing some of their usual activities.

“As a school professional, it’s personal. There is a strong and growing need to improve and provide equitable school-based mental health support and other resources to prevent school violence and mental health concerns in rural settings,” said Jessica Johnson from WMPLC. “Students are being trained to run, hide or fight for their lives at school. We must focus on a continued dialogue on improving student wellness with a stronger focus on prevention. With this Federal grant, we will look to meet critical needs in rural, tribal, and frontier schools, to better support our students.”

The project will improve schools’ access to skilled counseling services, social-emotional supports and content, a trauma and neuroscience-informed curriculum, mental health assessments and treatment, and strategic plans for sustaining these resources. The grant will help fund and resource linkage app, e-therapy assessments and treatment, direct access to CrisisTextLine, and a full-time credentialed School Counselor to serve as the Mental Health Resource Navigator.

About WMPLC
Western Montana Professional Learning Collaborative is a 501(c)3 organized to provide high-quality professional development opportunities and services which support communities of lifelong learners to achieve successful outcomes for youth. Together with its predecessor organization, WMPLC has been providing services to Montana schools for over 24 years and has a strong history and success in sustaining programs that meet critical school needs.

Montana Small Schools Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing over nearly 150 rural/frontier schools in Montana. Since 1996, the Alliance has provided workshops to multi-grade school districts and K-12 districts helping them create curriculum, instruction, and assessments, to meet state and federal standards.
 Contact: Jessica Johnson, jjohnson@wmplc.org
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