The University of Mississippi has been awarded $2.6 million to expand two programs that provide free online counseling services to youth across the state and share an evidence-based preschool curri-culum with teachers.
The Clinic for Outreach and Personal Enrichment and the Growing Healthy Minds, Bodies and Communities, or GHMBC, initiative received $1.5 million and $1.1 million grants, respectively, from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Both projects are housed in the School of Education. The funding will be distributed over a three-year period.
“At the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, we believe every child should thrive,” said Todd Klunk, the foundation’s program officer. “We support programs like Growing Healthy Minds, Bodies and Communities and COPE, which help children develop holistically and provide accessible mental health services, building stronger communities in Mississippi.”
Started in 2019, the GHMBC program provides training and resources to support preschool teachers, students and students’ families. The program’s interactive curri-culum offers a holistic approach to education, supplementing state requirements with lessons in gardening, yoga, nutrition, physical activity, and managing their emotions.
“This grant is enabling us to become more accessible to everyone,” said Alicia Stapp, Program Co-founder, Assistant Chair of Teacher Education and Associate Professor of Health and Physical Education at Ole Miss.
“We’re working on curriculum manuals and exploring ways to provide mass quantities of our learning resources, like our meal kits, family engagement events and classroom tower gardens, in an affordable, deliverable way.”
Twenty-two schools have adopted the program, and this funding allows the initiative to begin working with schools on its waitlist this fall.