Harris announces $285M to boost mental health counselors in schools

Vice President Harris is set to announce Thursday that the Biden administration is investing $285 million to help schools hire and train more than 14,000 mental health counselors.

Harris will make the announcement at a middle school in Charlotte, N.C., where she will attend “a roundtable conversation focused on gun violence prevention and keeping kids safe,” according to a White House official. She is traveling to North Carolina alongside Education Secretary Miguel Cardona.

The $285 million comes from the Safer Communities Act, which is the bipartisan gun violence prevention legislation President Biden signed into law in June 2022. The funding will be “the single largest investment in student mental health in history,” the official said.

Additionally, Harris will announce on Thursday that $6 million will go to community violence intervention efforts in schools.

The funding will be given out from the Education Department to seven school districts across the U.S. as part of the Project Prevent grant program, which aims to support strategies to help prevent and mitigate the impacts of community violence on students.

Harris currently oversees the first White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which was established in September.