Officials announced Thursday that non-profit Mississippi News Mississippi public school students will be able to access free mental and health care services as soon as August. The Mississippi Department of Education approved $17.6million in grants for telehealth services and teletherapy within schools at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Initial plans were to launch a pilot program by the Department of Education, but they decided to go statewide. Carey Wright, the state superintendent of education, stated, “The more we learned about (telehealth services), the more we felt that there was an entity or organization that could launch this statewide and get children access to it, then why don’t we?” The American Rescue Plan Elementary & Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER), is funding the program, which will run from July 2022 to September 2024. The program will begin serving its first schools in the 2022-2023 school years. The grant will pay for laptops to be used in video conferencing, as well as specially-equipped stethoscopes or otoscopes to transmit information to the doctor or nurse practitioner on the other side of the call. Children in all districts of the state will be able to receive urgent care, mental health, and specialist consultations from healthcare providers. “If you look at Mississippi’s distribution of doctors, there are plenty in Jackson, Hattiesburg and Tupelo. But if you go to rural Mississippi you will find that you are in a health care desert,” Dr. John Gaudet said. He is a Hattiesburg pediatrician who was also the former president of the state chapter of American Academy of Pediatrics. “Telehealth allows children to learn, engage in school, and avoid having to travel 40 miles to get an appointment. This program is also designed to help with mental health. Wright said that the pandemic has caused increased mental health problems for children. Wright stated, “Statewide, we must do a really great job of training our teachers leaders on the signs, symptoms, and treatment options for children and adults who are suffering from mental health issues and social-emotional problems. This will give them the great platform (to access) to treatment through our school nurses.” This grant is specifically partnered with the UMMC Center for Telehealth. It has been nationally recognized for its excellence in telehealth. Wright stated that healthy children learn and those who aren’t don’t. “If there was a way for us to ensure that our children and their families are healthy, or that staff and families are healthy, then that would be one thing we don’t need to worry about.”