Vice President Kamala Harris announces mental health funding for NC schools

Vice President Kamala Harris visited Charlotte on Thursday to highlight the federal resources available to protect kids, protect schools, and make the community safer.

Harris spoke at Eastway Middle School in east Charlotte that afternoon.

She spoke about the administration’s latest actions to reduce gun violence, as well as the federal funding that will be available for school-based mental health strategies under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

Harris announced $285 million of funding for mental health. $12 million will go to North Carolina to be used to hire more than 300 mental health counselors for schools.

“(To) provide a place where those who are trained to do this work to allow the students and the children to check in and to heal,” Harris said.

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Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles said the funds and the counselors are desperately needed.

“It is going to take all of us,” Lyles said. “Every level of government is going to be needed.”

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act was passed in response to the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. It will enhance background checks for people under 21 buying weapons and provide states with millions of dollars in incentives to implement red flag laws.

“The No. 1 killer of our children in America is gun violence, not car accidents, not some form of cancer,” Harris said.

Harris’ visit comes on the heels of two recent instances of gun violence in Charlotte involving teenagers.

On New Year’s Eve, police arrested a 19-year-old for a shooting in Romare Bearden Park. A week later, a high school student was killed while attending a house party.

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