Hogan announces youth COVID recovery program
May 7—Gov. Larry Hogan on Thursday announced the launch of a $25 million program designed to help young people recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Project Bounce Back was hailed by the governor as a "first-in-the-nation public-private partnership" that will provide strategic mental-health services, expand youth development programs and use data and technology-driven platforms to aid youth recovery.
The partnership includes the Maryland State Department of Education, the Governor's Office of Crime Prevention, Youth and Victim Services, the Boys and Girls Club of America, Microsoft, LinkedIn Learning, KPMG, Discourse Analytics and eCare Vault.
Hogan also signed an executive order to address Adverse Childhood Experiences or ACEs.
"As the governor, but also as a father and grandfather, nothing breaks my heart more than to see what our children have suffered through over the past year, especially those kids who are growing up in underserved communities, and I refuse to sit back and accept this as the status quo," Hogan (R) said in a written statement. "The mission of this new initiative is to provide critical health services to young people in need and to build post-COVID resilience among Maryland youth, families and communities."
Project Bounce Back will expand the Maryland Alliance of Boys and Girls Club to every county in the state, with a particular focus on poor school districts and rural communities. It will send six regional mental health crisis teams comprised of counselors, psychologists and experts through the State Department of Education.
"Students in Maryland and across the country have been impacted by the pandemic academically, physically, socially and emotionally," Dr. Karen Salmon, the state superintendent of schools, said in a statement. "MSDE's new regional mental health crisis teams will work closely with local school systems to connect students to needed emotional and social supports."
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