Just Roots, Clinical and Support Options and the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts are among seven organizations awarded $300,000 in competitive “innovation” planning grants from the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts.
CSO’s $45,000 “Building Resilience by Creating Trauma Sensitive Schools” grant will be used to help schools around Franklin County plan training and policy review that helps sensitize them to student trauma such as teen suicide, which is more prevalent here than for the state as a whole, says CSO Chief Executive Office Karin Jeffers.
The grant, focused on high schools, will help the Mohawk Trail, Frontier, Pioneer, Mahar, Gill-Montague and Franklin County Technical school districts, as well as Greenfield schools, develop more “trauma-informed” cultures.
An outcome will be to apply for an implementation grant to provide staff training and onsite clinical support.
