Project AWARE MS

Project AWARE in Mississippi (AWARE MS) is a partnership

between the MS Department of Education (MDE), the MS Achievement School District (MASD), MS Department of Mental Health (MDH), our state’s Federation of Families organization, community providers, and multiple programs across three MS universities (UMMC, USM, MSU). AWARE MS aims to increase mental health awareness, foster resilience, and strengthen access to trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and family driven mental health services and supports in Humphreys County and Yazoo City School Districts, with hopes to expand to additional districts. Both districts are housed within the MASD, which aims to transform persistently failing MS public schools. Led by the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC), AWARE MS will collaborate to develop and improve a school-based continuum of awareness, prevention, training, and service linkage and delivery focused on the MASD and primed to scale to other Mississippi schools across the state. Both MASD districts are located in the Mississippi (MS) Delta region, a rural and underserved region with significant rates of child adversity and poverty. Both MASD districts are in HRSA-designated mental health professional shortage areas. Dr. Smith serves as Site Principal Investigator at USM. The aspect of the project that Dr. Smith will be overseeing is training teachers on how to implement a universal preventive intervention (Good Behavior Game; GBG) and using technology that was developed by Dr. Smith in partnership with Cloud Construct (Boston-based technology development firm) to support teachers in their delivery of the GBG. The technology not only delivers most aspects of the intervention automatically for teachers but also ensures that the GBG is implemented as intended. The Good Behavior Game (GBG) is the most thoroughly studied classroom management intervention and has been identified by several federal agencies as “best practice” for the prevention of substance abuse and violent behavior.