Grant Spotlight: CUES School System

Organization Name: CUES School System: All Saints, Holy Name and Sacred Heart

Mission: The CUES School System is a bold educational initiative providing centralized leadership and governance to three urban elementary schools in Omaha, NE, serving a majority of low-income students and families. We combine innovative, instructional methods with comprehensive student and family support in a Catholic, faith-based environment, to create and sustain excellent and measurable outcomes that not only impact the students we serve, and the entire community. No child is turned away due to inability to pay.

Funded Program Description: Support for salaries of our three Mental Health Therapists.

The CUES School System provides overall counseling services to the students and families at all three of our schools.  The focus is to enhance student’s mental health, support academic performance with a foundation in our Catholic faith.  Our purpose is to empower young minds, aiding them in overcoming life’s challenges and thriving academically and personally.  We also believe that when a child is healthy mentally, they are more likely to be engaged academically.

Successes of Program or Inspirational Stories: To date, 117 students across all three of our schools are being served by one of our mental health therapists.

We have partnered with Community Alliance and identified a mental health screener to help our therapists identify those students who might be struggling silently.  This screener, as a pilot, was administered in October 2024 to our students in grades 6-8 at Sacred Heart.  The screener identified 5-7 students who were in need of mental health services.

As a result of this screener and the pilot results, we will be administering across all three of our schools in Fall, 2025.  The partnership with Community Alliance also allows for us to access experts in the field as well as assistance should a particular student or students need more intense services.

Other Comments: We are forever grateful for the support from The Kim Foundation.

Contact Information:

Jamal Morton, Director of Mental Health Services
jmorton@shsomaha.org