Colorado School Health Professional Grant Program

The Colorado School Health Professional Grant Program is administered by the Colorado Department of Education through its Health Education Services Office. The program was established through Senate Bill 14-215 and is intended to provide funds to eligible education providers to enhance the presence of licensed or certified school health professionals in K-12 schools throughout Colorado. The program supports the availability of school-based prevention, early intervention, health care, and behavioral health services for school-aged students. The current program webpage identifies the active grant cycle as running from 2023 through 2026 and provides a funded grantee list for that cycle. The program's objectives include increasing the presence of school health professionals who can provide behavioral health care to students with mental health, substance use or misuse, and other behavioral health needs. Grant-supported activities may also provide training and resources for school health professionals, other behavioral health school team members, and school staff on implementation of evidence-based behavioral health education programming. The program is also intended to help school health professionals connect students to treatment and counseling available through community-based organizations and to provide behavioral health services at recipient schools. Examples of services identified by the source include screenings, counseling, therapy, referrals to community organizations, and training for students and staff on behavioral health issues. For purposes of the program, a school health professional is a state-licensed or state-certified school nurse or another state-licensed or state-certified health professional qualified under Colorado law to provide support services to children and adolescents. The program specifically identifies school nurses, school psychologists, school social workers, and school counselors as examples. Certain professionals licensed through the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies may also qualify. The program cautions that this hiring flexibility does not override federal requirements under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and directs education providers to verify licensing requirements applicable to their Local Education Provider. Eligible education providers identified by the Colorado Department of Education are a school district applying on behalf of one or more K-12 schools, a Board of Cooperative Services, and a charter school authorized either by a school district or by the Charter School Institute. The program is therefore geographically limited to Colorado education providers rather than being a nationwide opportunity. The fact sheet describes the program as providing matching grants, establishing that a matching component is part of the statutory grant structure. However, the supplied sources do not state the required match percentage, ratio, dollar amount, waiver provisions, individual award minimum or maximum, total program funding, or anticipated number of awards. The supplied materials do not provide a current application form, application portal, application questions, required proposal attachments, evaluation scoring criteria, application opening date, final submission deadline, pre-application deadline, or award notification date. They also do not state that applications are accepted on a rolling basis or that a new competition occurs annually, biennially, or according to another recurring schedule. The webpage instead identifies the 2023-2026 grant cycle and links to the funded grantee list, indicating that awards for that identified cycle have already been made. Because no exact application close date or announced subsequent competition is provided, a future application date cannot be calculated from the supplied sources. The official SHPG webpage provides the program email address shpgteam@cde.state.co.us. The January 2025 fact sheet additionally identifies Phyllis Reed at Reed_P@cde.state.co.us, Kristi Elliott at Elliott_K@cde.state.co.us, Stephanie Bernard at Bernard_S@cde.state.co.us, and Liz Schroeder at Schroeder_E@cde.state.co.us as contacts for questions. The webpage also lists Health Education Services Office personnel, including Sarah Blumenthal and Kristi Elliott, but no SHPG-specific program telephone number is supplied. Prospective applicants seeking information about a future funding round should therefore verify the next solicitation, application dates, funding levels, matching formula, application requirements, and award period directly with the Colorado Department of Education before preparing an application.

Align the proposed work with the program's stated objectives: increase appropriately licensed or certified school health professional capacity; address student mental health, substance use or misuse, and other behavioral health needs; use evidence-based behavioral health education where applicable; strengthen screening, counseling, therapy, referral, training, and community care coordination; and verify applicable licensing and IDEA requirements.