Safe and Supportive Schools

The Office of Safe and Supportive Schools (OSSS) administers grant programs and technical assistance centers addressing the overall safe and health school community. Safe and supportive schools are critical to the well-being of the whole school community as well as the academic success of students. The U.S. Department of Education provides schools, school districts, and state educational agencies with resources aimed at preventing school violence. These include: 

• Project Prevent Grant Program, which enhances schools' and school districts' ability to identify, assess, and serve students exposed to pervasive violence; 
• School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program, which increases the number of credentialed mental health services providers providing school-based mental health services to students in local educational agencies (LEAs); 
• Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program, which supports innovative partnerships to train school-based mental health service providers for employment in schools and LEAs; 
• Stronger Connections Program, to support competitive subgrants to high-need LEAs, for activities to support safe and healthy students.
• Stronger Connections Technical Assistance and Capacity Building Program, which advances the mental health and well-being of early learners, school-age children and youth, educators, and other school staff; and 
• Student Support and Academic Enrichment Program (Title IV, Part A), which addresses well-rounded educational opportunities in both the traditional, in-person setting and virtual setting alike, as well as safe and healthy student programming.
• Federal Partners in Student Health Resource Hub, 
  The Student Health Resource hub serves as a portal where K-12 schools, school districts, SEAs, and other stakeholders can access high quality federal and federally supported information, resources, and research that support student health. The goal of this hub is to provide information that supports the physical and mental health of all students as well as healthy, physical school environments. Content for the site is comprised of resources by the Federal Partners in School Health (FPSH) working group, which is an alliance of federal agencies that support healthy school environments.
• Title IV-A Technical Assistance Center (T4PA Center), The T4PA Center provides SSAE State coordinators assistance across the program’s diverse content areas in the form of developing and disseminating high-quality resources, information, and trainings, as well as providing access to a national cadre of subject matter experts who can offer targeted technical assistance. In partnership with ED, the T4PA Center works with States to identify grant implementation needs, develop a tailored plan to address these needs, and broker support to build capacity at the state and local levels to help ensure Title IV, Part A programmatic success.