Is NJ’s revamped mental health program for schoolkids working?
At the beginning of the 2023 school year, New Jersey launched a program to increase mental health services for students. The plan created 15 hubs, or treatment service centers, throughout the state, in an effort to provide preventive and “brief intervention” mental health services to more public-school students. That program, known as the New Jersey Statewide Student Support Services network, or NJ4S, was a response to the “sharp increase” in the rates of depression, anxiety and stress among New Jersey teenagers and young adults that were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.