MADISON, Wis. — Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison are leading a new nationwide hub for school mental health grants.

What You Need To Know

  • Three UW-Madison researchers received a $10.4 million grant for school mental health coordination 

  • The center is called METRICS, which stands for Mental Health Evaluation, Training, Research and Innovation Center for Schools

  • METRICS will help hundreds of grantees across the country working to improve students' mental health 

  • Part of its core mission is to get more people in the school mental health staffing pipeline 

Katie Eklund, Stephen Kilgus and Andy Garbacz are in charge of METRICS, a new center dedicated to addressing students’ mental health needs.

They’re co-directors of the School Mental Health Collaborative, under UW-Madison’s Department of Educational Psychology.

Kids are struggling. In the latest Youth Risk Behavior Survey, over half of Wisconsin students reported they have symptoms of anxiety.

Over a third said they have symptoms of depression, and about 18% said they’d seriously considered suicide.

“Before the pandemic, there was an accelerating crisis with youth mental health,” Garbacz said. “What we observed over the last few years is increasing concerns and increasing mental health needs among children and youth, but also within families and across our communities.”

A recent survey by the National Center for Education Statistics shows 70% of public schools are experiencing more students asking for mental health help.

“We hear from a lot of teachers that they’re very interested and passionate about supporting student mental health, but they don’t always necessarily feel like they have the training or time to be able to do that effectively,” Kilgus said.

METRICS stands for Mental Health Evaluation, Training, Research and Innovation Center for Schools. The team has a four-year, $10.4 million contract.

The center is funded by the Safer Communities Act, signed into law in 2023. The bipartisan effort included about a billion dollars for school mental health, spearheaded by the Biden administration.

METRICS will be the central hub for 300 school mental health grants across the country.

Eklund, Kilgus and Garbacz said a key part of their work is coordinating and communicating between all the grantees.

They said they want to share the ideas that work, and coordinate conversations where everyone can talk about lessons they’ve learned.

“How can we all learn from each other about what’s going well? What are mutual challenges? While also knowing that they have a ton of expertise available to them,” Kilgus said.

The country currently has a shortage of 100,000 school mental health staff, according to the Washington Post. The METRICS’ core mission includes helping to grow that workforce.

“There’s a lot of need within schools,” Kilgus said. “Our hope is to be able to address that need by training more and more individuals to fill the gaps that exist and provide the support that school districts need.”

The team is also working to get more diversity in school mental health positions. They said they want to get more people of color, queer people and people from disadvantaged backgrounds into the field. That can make a big difference for kids.

“We want kids to be able to look around the school and see educators who look like them, who maybe have had shared experiences, lived experiences that they have,” Eklund said. “We know that for many kids, that is what they need to feel more comfortable.”

This is a big undertaking. They said it’s high-level work that can be used on the micro level by individual districts, schools and teachers. 

“We can… expand greater connections across communities, schools and universities,” Garbacz said. “Children are our collective responsibility.”

For more information on METRICS, click here.

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