The NM Public Education Department is ideally positioned to partner with the NM Children Youth and Families Department (CYFD) to implement Project AWARE’s broad-scale mental health services and training in three Local Education Agencies (LEAs): Socorro Consolidated Schools in Socorro County, Farmington Municipal Schools in San Juan County, and Santa Fe Public Schools in Santa Fe County. All three LEAs have high rates of families speaking languages other than English in the home: Socorro 39%, San Juan 30% (U.S. Census Bureau, 2019), and Santa Fe 36% (U.S. Census Bureau, 2019a) and high rates of children living in poverty (26.3% in San Juan, 35.5% in Socorro, and 19% in Santa Fe; NMDOH, 2020). The purpose of Project AWARE is to expand the capacity of the SEA (NM Public Education Department; PED) in partnership with the Children’s SMHA (NM Children, Youth and Families Department; CYFD), and three LEAs located in Socorro, Farmington, and Santa Fe to promote the healthy development of school-aged youth and prevent youth violence. The goals are to: (1) increase awareness of MH issues among school-aged youth; (2) provide training for school personnel and other adults who interact with school-aged youth to detect and respond to MH issues; (3) connect school-aged youth who may have MH issues (including serious emotional disturbance [SED] or serious mental illness [SMI]), and their families, to needed services; (4) Develop the infrastructure to sustain MH services & supports for school- aged youth after funding ends; and (5) utilize program evaluation to ensure continuous quality improvement. One hundred youth will be served annually, with 500 youth served over the life of the grant.