AmeriCorps funding cuts threaten mental health program that serves Colorado students

CBS News

22-05-2025

Helping students thrive has been the focal point behind Maya Stackhouse's mission to pursue a degree in social work in Denver.
"A lot of time schools are the first point of contact for young people getting any kind of attention or academic or emotional support that they might need," said Stackhouse.
Stackhouse is a graduate student at Metropolitan State University of Denver, but they have been spending the last year working as a mental health associate at Bryant Webster Dual Language School, a Denver elementary school, as part of a year-long paid internship program.
"I've committed to 675 hours for the year. I've completed over 700," said Stackhouse.
The program is run by the organization Spark through their Health Corps.
"Any given day I'm probably going to see four to five students, either individually or in groups," they said. "I'm also responding as things come up in school, which they do all day long. I will also do about an hour of data tracking and outreach around attendance and outreach to other social workers or district level resources to coordinate wrap around care for families."
Each year since the Spark Health Corps program started in 2022, roughly 10 to 13 associates fill the gap in mental health services that may be absent in underserved schools across the state.
As a Title I school, Bryant Webster's principal Brian Clark says they wouldn't otherwise have the budget for a social worker.
"We serve a number of newly arrived families from out of the country and they come with a variety of needs, and a social worker fills those needs quite well," said Clark.
"If I'm not in the building, it's very likely that those services just don't happen because the person isn't in the building," said Stackhouse.
This is a concern that now appears to be settling in for those involved in the program, after Spark Health Corps lost critical funding from AmeriCorps last month amid ongoing federal budget cuts.
"The majority of the funding for this program comes from an AmeriCorps grant that allows us to build the program, run the program, to provide a living allowance, stipend to our associate interns," said Barb Knapp, Program Manager for Spark Health Corps.
The state service commission, Serve Colorado, is still providing some funding support for people like Stackhouse to continue paid work through the remainder of their contract.
"However, this is on a week-by-week basis," said Knapp.
Right now, the state is pushing back against cuts to AmeriCorps through the courts. Yet, there is still long term concerns about the sustainability of the program if grant funding is not reinstated.
"These programs won't exist. There will be students who don't have access to mental health care, there will be school staff that don't have access to that supplemental support for their behavioral health efforts," said Knapp.
"We do the best we can with what we've got, but there's never enough resources, and so I would be worried about meeting the needs of our families if something happened to that relationship and they lost their funding," said Clark.
For Stackhouse, it is a long term fear that cuts like this to mental health services will come at the expense of students.
"I think about a student that I worked with this year, who it took six months for him to open up and ask for help. I will leave this year, and that student is counting on an intern to step in next year, or a mental health provider to step in next year. They need that person," said Stackhouse. "If they don't have that person, that family loses access to advocacy for their individualized mental health services, food, income support, rent support, that's stuff that all got coordinated this year through my internship through Spark."