Grants awarded to support student success

Investments made in basic needs and mental health

By California State University, Bakersfield

February 27^th, 2020

Three grants were recently awarded to support student success at California State University, Bakersfield. The grants support basic needs partnerships and mental health partnerships.

Grants awarded to support student success

Basic needs patnerships

The California State University (CSU) Office of the Chancellor has awarded $562,000 to CSUB to address the basic needs of students. CSUB was one of 22 campuses awarded; the total funding for the CSU was $15 million. The funding for CSUB’s basic needs is broken down into the following categories:

Housing and food component ($310,000)
$40,000 – Emergency housing for students experiencing homelessness or catastrophic circumstances
$270,000 – Demonstration kitchen; collaboration with Student Recreation Center to build and operate a demonstration kitchen
Wellness component ($250,000)
$100,000 – health promotion/wellness resources and committee
$150,000 – mental and physical health for students to be divided in half ($75,000 each) between the Student Health Center and the Counseling Center; aimed to help students who might not otherwise be able to pay costs of a prescription, health educators would help student in getting cost covered with this funding and sign up for Medi-Cal
Research and innovation award (CSUB was one of only 15 to receive)
$2,000 – “Stigma Associated with Food Pantry Usage” received by JasonWatkins; will focus on researching what students experience when using food pantries and developing strategies for outreach

Mental health partnerships

Allotted by Gov. Newsom in last year’s CSU budget, this grant supports all CSU counseling centers; CSUB is receiving $125,000.

“The Counseling Center's portion of the AB74 grant will be used to enhance the media and audio presence of the Counseling Center services, mental health support and resources,” said counseling center coordinator Janet Millar. “We are looking forward to be able to make some videos of how to listen to a friend who might have mental health symptoms, how to make an appointment, what a first appointment might be like, and video record our workshops on anxiety and depression management.”

In addition to enhancing the Counseling Center’s media and audio presence, the grant will support the following initiatives:

Central Valley Drive-In Conference: A one-day conference with notable, current and, when possible, local presenters on student success and mental health populations. Conferences would be designed for counselors, faculty/staff and administrators from the Central Valley CSUs, University of California campuses, as well as California Community Colleges. It would also invite departments of mental health from Central Valley cities and other local mental health professionals.
Physical infrastructure: The grant will give the Counseling Center a chance to update their spaces in Bakersfield and the Antelope Valley campus.
Mobile application: The CSUB Counseling Center hopes to develop an app so students have immediate access to stress management tools.