School mental health programs faced rapid whiplash after President Donald Trump’s administration abruptly canceled up to $2 billion in mental health and addiction treatment grants this week, only to reinstate them the next day.
The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration notified thousands of grantees late Jan. 13 that it had terminated their funding. Those included recipients of Project AWARE (Advancing Wellness and Resiliency in Education), a school mental health grant program created with bipartisan support following the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
After outcry from mental health advocacy organizations, educators, and members of Congress from both parties, an administration official told Education Week Jan. 15 that the terminations would be reversed. But some affected states and school districts who receive Project AWARE grants said they had not received any communication about the reversal by Jan. 15, leaving the future of their programs in a state of uncertainty. Others reported receiving reversal notices throughout the day.
“The conflicting information creates real stress for the schools, families, and communities who depend on these services,” said a statement from Chris Bucher, a spokesperson for the Wisconsin department of education, which was among those to receive a termination letter.
Project AWARE’s 139 grantees—including school districts large and small, health agencies, universities, and 35 state education departments—use the five-year awards to improve students’ awareness of mental health issues, improve access to school- and community-based mental health services, and train school staff on responding to trauma and mental health needs. The program received $140 million in the 2025 fiscal year.
The abrupt action and confusing messaging continues a familiar pattern for the Trump administration, which has swiftly canceled a host of education grants and contracts without warning since the start of the president’s second term a year ago.
Trump administration provided little information about cancelations, reversal
Press representatives from the White House Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and SAMHSA did not immediately respond to emailed questions about why the grants were pulled or why that decision was quickly reversed.
The agencies also did not answer questions about how many of the Project AWARE grants were pulled, but several public health advocacy organizations believe every current grant under the program may have been affected by the termination and reversal. Six states—Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Washington—confirmed they’d received termination and reversal notices.
An initial cancelation letter from SAMHSA, provided to Education Week by a district mental health official, said the agency revoked the grants to better align resources with administration priorities.
Those priorities, outlined in the letter, include: “innovative programs and interventions that address the rising rates of mental illness and substance abuse conditions, overdose, and suicide and their connections to chronic diseases, homelessness, and other challenges our nation’s communities face.” That description, though, echoes language used in Project AWARE grants.
It would have been “devastating” to lose the funding, said Lisa Dierking, the coordinator of school-based mental health for the Missouri education department, which is in the last year of a five-year, $1.7 million grant. The state’s Project AWARE programming includes providing school-based mental health staff in three districts, “mental health first aid” programs that train teachers and students to recognize and respond to warning signs of crisis or suicide, a hotline that connects educators with mental health resources, and professional development for districts on mental health issues.
The next professional development session under the grant will occur Jan. 16, two days after the state received initial notice that its funding was canceled. When trainers for the event learned of the situation, they offered to continue the session without pay, Dierking said. But in the longer term, the state’s education department would not have had money to pay for all of the programs covered by the grant, she said.
“It’s like a faucet,” she said. “How can you just turn it off?”
Student mental health grants have bipartisan support
The administrative whirlwind, which came with no warning, puzzled educators and advocates.
Trump and members of his administration have previously signaled support for the grants. Trump’s budget proposal called for $120 million in funding for the grants in the 2026 fiscal year. As a U.S. senator, current Secretary of State Marco Rubio sponsored the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a 2021 bill that included $240 million for Project AWARE grants awarded in 2022.
While Trump frequently cites mental health as a cause of school shootings, his administration has expressed skepticism about some school-based mental health efforts.
In September, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon criticized student mental health screenings, writing in a Washington Post essay that they come at the risk of over-diagnosing mental health conditions and unnecessarily pathologizing students. That position contradicted recommendations from a National School Safety Commission assembled by Trump in his first term.
The reversal of the Project AWARE grants came after a bipartisan group of 100 members of Congress sent a letter to Kennedy demanding the grants remain in place. The National Alliance on Mental Illness, an advocacy organization, said its members sent 16,000 messages to Congress about the issue in 24 hours.
“These cuts caused great—and warranted—panic yesterday,” Hannah Wesolowski, the organization’s chief advocacy officer, said in a statement after the reversal. “They should never have been considered in the first place, and we will be working with our champions to ensure life-saving mental health funding is protected moving forward.”
