The Youth Mental Health Crisis Has a Solution. 

Build It With Us in the Bronx.

School WellForce NYC aims to shift youth mental health from crisis response to prevention

We’re launching a five-year, $50 million initiative to embed a neighborhood-based, healing-centered workforce in public schools, sustained through Medicaid.

Photo by: Sharjah M. Bodji

This reimagines healing by:

  • Expanding access to care

  • Making schools a place where every child feels safe and known

  • Training providers from the local community with shared lived experience

WHY NOW?

Schools are being asked to respond to an unprecedented youth mental health crisis without the systems and supports needed to meet this moment. While there is real and committed work happening across NYC schools to address mental health, our program is designed to fund and fill the gap for students before they are in crisis, complementing and strengthening the clinical work already underway.

Suicide recently surpassed cancer as a cause of death among young people

Tens of millions in federal funds can be unlocked due to recent changes in New York’s Medicaid Program

It’s already working – schools in CA, CT, IL, and MN have implemented similar programs linking Medicaid to school-based services and support

HOW IT WORKS:

Starting with a pilot in NYC School District 9 in the South Bronx, School Wellforce NYC addresses youth wellbeing by uniting service delivery, workforce development, and federal financing.

1

Prevention, family engagement, AND care coordination for all students

  • Trained certified wellness coaches embedded in every school

  • Universal access with a multi-tiered system of supports focused on Tiers 1 and 2, where trusted relationships are built, and early warning signs are caught

  • Licensed clinicians remain essential partners for students with higher-acuity needs

2

Local Workforce Development

  • High-quality, community-based jobs for local residents

  • Clear career pathways from peer support specialist to wellness coach and beyond

  • Builds local capacity with people who are culturally aligned and multilingual with relevant lived experience

3

Philanthropic funding jumpstarts the system.
Medicaid and public education funding sustain it.

  • Recent changes in New York’s Medicaid program now allow reimbursement for Peer Support Specialists and care coordination

  • More than 90% of District 9 students are Medicaid-eligible

  • We build the systems needed to access tens of millions of dollars annually in currently unclaimed federal Medicaid funds

Our Pilot Partner:
NYC School District 9

For roughly $530 per student annually – about $50 million over five years – we’ll serve:

  • ~50 schools

  • 25,000 students

  • Creating 150 jobs

This cost is competitive with traditional school-based health models while delivering broader reach and stronger prevention.

Team & Partners

The initiative is led by The Wellness Classroom and Public Works Alliance, in partnership with NYC Schools District 9, New York University Child Study Center, The Partnership for New York City, and The Jed Foundation.

Together, these partners bring deep expertise in school-based mental health, financing, evaluation, and policy implementation.

Public works alliance

  • Alex Briscoe – Co-Founder, The Public Works Alliance; Principal at California Children's Trust

  • Kofi Taha – Director of Workforce Development, The Public Works Alliance

The Wellness classroom

  • Sarah Holloway – Co-Founder, The Wellness Classroom; Faculty and Director, MPA, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs

  • Eric Weingartner – Co-Founder, The Wellness Classroom; President, The Overbrook Foundation

  • Anke Ehlert – Director, The Wellness Classroom

  • David Adams, MSEd – CEO, The Urban Assembly

  • Dr. Prerna Arora, PhD – Associate Professor of Psychology and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University

  • Dr. Angela Diaz, MD, PhD, MPH – Dean of Global Health, Social Justice, and Human Rights, the Jean C. and James W. Crystal Professor in Adolescent Health, Department of Pediatrics and Department of Environmental Medicine, and Professor, Department of Global Health and Health Systems Design at the Icahn School of Medicine

NYC Advisory Board

  • John MacPhee, MBA, MPH – CEO, The Jed Foundation

  • Dr. Michael Preston, PhD – Executive Director, Joan Ganz Cooney Center @ Sesame Workshop

  • Dr. Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, PhD – Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, Director of the Emotion Regulation Lab at Hunter College, The City University of New York; Co-founder, Arcade Therapeutics

  • Eric Weingartner, MPA – Co-Founder, The Wellness Classroom; CEO, The Overbrook Foundation

In District 9, we are committed to every student belonging socially and emotionally, excelling academically, and thriving in their communities. We are working to build a strong mental health continuum that ensures students are connected to and supported by members of their community who can support this vision.”

Harry Sherman, Superintendent, District 9

Your Questions, Answered

  • The South Bronx is a community in need: 1 in 4 students have experienced homelessness or housing insecurity, and 90% of children are Medicaid-eligible. But it’s also a community uniquely positioned to lead this work. The district has strong community school infrastructure, established school-based health partnerships, superintendent commitment, and proven leadership through the Every Child and Family is Known initiative. What works here can scale citywide.

  • School Wellforce NYC strengthens what schools already have; it doesn’t replace it.

    Imagine a 500-student middle school with one guidance counselor and limited clinical support. Today, most mental health staff spend their time responding to crises. With School Wellforce NYC, certified wellness coaches are embedded in the building every day.

    Tier 1: Prevention
    For all students, 
CWCs lead classroom wellness sessions, small groups, and family workshops. They build trusted relationships and make support visible and normal.

    Tier 2: Early intervention/support
    Because they’re present and connected, CWCs spot concerns early, like attendance shifts, behavior changes, and withdrawal. They provide short-term support and coordinate with families before challenges escalate.

    Tier 3: Clinical care
    Licensed clinicians remain essential. When therapy or intensive services are needed, CWCs coordinate referrals and ensure follow-through so clinicians can focus on care.

    The result is a better Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS): prevention first, early intervention second, clinical care when needed. More aligned, less fragmented.

  • Much of what schools already do is explicitly billable under Child & Family Treatment and Support Services (CFTSS). We’re just creating the workflow and billing infrastructure to take advantage of it. Learn more.

  • We are not proposing a new policy. We are operationalizing existing policy through implementation infrastructure:

    • School-ready service models: Translating Medicaid rules into workflows aligned with school realities

    • Billing and documentation systems: Centralized eligibility verification, coordinated billing processes

    • Expanded workforce pathways: Peer Support Specialists and Certified Wellness Coaches alongside licensed clinicians

    • Alternative payment models: Per-child and bundled approaches for prevention and coordination

  • These trusted adults are hired from District 9 neighborhoods – culturally aligned, multilingual, and rooted in the community. Recruitment prioritizes lived experience navigating mental health challenges and structural barriers.

    Many local Bronx residents are already supporting students – as school aides, coaches or community mentors. By partnering with local community based organizations, CUNY campuses, and workforce development partners, we’ll identify adults already serving young people and connect the dots to School Wellforce NYC as a pathway into stable, well-paid roles in youth mental health.

Join Us

School WellForce NYC is intentionally designed as a demonstration with scale in mind. The goal is not to create a one-off program, but to prove a repeatable model that embeds prevention and early mental health support permanently inside public schools—financed primarily with public dollars.

If you’d like to help us launch the pilot program and show what’s possible, get in touch at hello@schoolwellforce.org

A big thanks to the student photographers at ICP at The Point for helping to tell this story.

Photo by: Cora Quiñones
Photo by: Sharjah M. Bodji 
Photo by: Cora Quiñones
Photo by: Noah Terrell