Students in Syracuse city schools will soon be able to access new mental health services through a partnership between the district and SUNY Upstate Medical University.

Through the five-year program, which will launch in January, mental health professionals from SUNY Upstate and the district will offer support for students through on-site clinics and tele-health appointments. The new services will be funded through a $5.5 million federal grant.

The partnership will help the growing number of young people who need mental health support and increase the amount of providers from diverse backgrounds, said John B. King, chancellor of the SUNY school system, at a press conference Wednesday.

"For many of our students, school is the one place where someone will check in, the one place where they will find the love, the support and the sense of safety that they need," King said. "This commitment to support mental health in our schools is about saving children's lives. It's about strengthening our communities."

Last year, the district documented 312 cases of students experiencing "suicidal ideation," said Teresa Bowers, SCSD's director for mental health.

But many of those students can't access the help they need due to the shortage of mental health providers in the area, she said. Currently 300 students are on the district's waitlist to access mental health services, Bowers said. She believes there are even more students in need of services, though.

"Students in our community face a lot of issues that have resulted from trauma, a lot of childhood adverse experiences that accumulate," Bowers said. "How that manifests oftentimes is significant mental health crises, behavioral incidents, suicidal ideation."

The program will include permanent clinics at some schools as well as tele-health appointments. To start, permanent providers will be available at Grant Middle School and the McCarthy at Beard School, an alternative program that serves students across all grade levels who have severe emotional, behavioral and social needs, Bowers said.

The staff will be available during the school day as well as after school hours and during breaks, Bowers said.

Students will also be able to access the providers, including nurse practitioners, autism specialists and child psychiatrists, easily without needing a referral or to wait for an appointment to open up, said Mantosh Dewan, president of SUNY Upstate.

"Our dream is simple," he said. "Each child, no matter how disadvantaged, must have the same level of care and expertise as any other child, with all the needs and the supports, connections, checks and services."

While medical treatment is often more effective when providers have the same background as their patients, the city and schools do not have a diverse pool of providers that students can access, Dewan said.

The partnership will create a pipeline for mental health professionals and allow students to meet with providers who have the same racial and cultural identity as them, Dewan said.

Upstate plans to recruit a diverse group of providers, including students from Upstate who will be able to earn their clinical hours, he said. Professional providers from Upstate and district staff will also work in the clinics and help mentor the students as they continue in the field, he said.

"We very carefully, intentionally want to recruit the first group of people who will be very diverse, and they will then become the mentors and the trainers for the rest of the group," Dewan said. "We want to build a rich offering that students will value and that we will definitely value them."