Positive social change is a key tenet of the School of Social Work, and a recent grant award is ensuring that the school can impact students across the Clarke County School District (CCSD).
The SSW successfully applied for a $100,000 grant from the UGA Foundation Board of Trustees, and the funds will be used to support the ongoing efforts of the School’s BRIDGE Care program.
The UGA Foundation Grants Program is a highly competitive, university‑wide initiative that awards $50,000 to $100,000 for innovative, high‑impact projects that strengthen UGA’s academic mission and enhance the student experience. In this year’s cycle, each school, college, and unit could submit only one proposal, and the BRIDGE Care proposal was one of more than 20 submitted across campus.
“We are deeply grateful for the generous support from the UGA Foundation,” said Hee Lee, Associate Dean for Research and Director of the Institute for Nonprofit Organizations. “This funding will allow our BRIDGE team to strengthen mental health services at Clarke Middle School by expanding access to evidence-based supports and building sustainable partnerships with the school and community. Our goal is to create a supportive environment where students can thrive emotionally and academically, and this investment brings us one step closer to that vision.”
A Spotlight on BRIDGE Care
More formally known as “Building Relational Innovation Development Growth and Engagement,” the BRIDGE Care program is housed within the School of Social Work’s Institute for Nonprofit Organizations. Currently, the program partners with the Clarke Middle Health Center (CMHC) to provide free mental health services to students, families, and staff from all Clarke County schools.
The CMHC holds partnerships with a number of other UGA units, including the new School of Medicine, School of Law, College of Family and Consumer Sciences and College of Public Health, so that students can receive free medical, legal, behavioral health and counseling services.
CMHC is open daily during the school year and during limited hours during the summer months, allowing Clarke County students and staff to receive essential services, while providing UGA students with an opportunity to earn valuable experience through service learning.
Most importantly, the grant will allow the program to build capacity. Currently, only one student handles the caseload at CMHC, and BRIDGE Coordinator Megan Westbrook would like to bring other students onboard and provide them with financial support for their efforts. The funding will also allow the team to develop an evaluation plan to examine program outcomes. This can be shared to build in more resources and increase program confidence.
Additionally, BRIDGE Care will use the grant to formalize training protocols, ensuring they are maximized for interprofessional training and expanded engagement. Currently, Master of Social Work (MSW) students deliver services including short‑term counseling, case management, psychoeducation, and resource navigation for clients, and the grant will better prepare these students as they directly advance well‑being outcomes for vulnerable families.
“The BRIDGE Care program is intentionally designed to be scalable to additional school-based health centers throughout the region, positioning the UGA SSW to make a lasting systemic impact on mental health services in high-need areas throughout the region,” said Zoe Johnson, a Clinical Associate Professor and supervisor of social work practicum students at the CMHC. “This grant serves as a catalyst, positioning UGA as a national leader in community‑engaged, interprofessional training.”
Through the Grant Process
SSW Dean Philip Hong initially informed Johnson and Westbrook that the grant was available and nudged the two to get a proposal together. They teamed up and spent more than a week developing proposal content, relying on Johnson’s highly informed perspective of the work and Westbrook’s eye for structure and wordsmithing. They brought in Lee, who specializes in grant writing, to elevate their proposal.
Johnson and Westbrook also tagged in Stephen Turner, the school’s Instructional Video Production Specialist, to create a video package that was submitted alongside the project overview, impact statement and budget. The package offered complementary information to the written materials, allowing Johnson and Westbrook to lean into their respective backgrounds in performance and theater to tell the project’s story and highlight the community that has contributed to BRIDGE Care’s success.
“One of the other things that I really enjoyed about this process is that this is a really good team,” Westbrook said. “This group of people, they’re all incredibly smart. They’re all in this for the right reasons, and we all get along really well.”
As the BRIDGE Care team prepares to make the most of its recent grant win, it will keep program strength and impact at the center of the grant’s use.
“Now we can start thinking about opportunities for BRIDGE in addition to BRIDGE Care,” said Westbrook. “We just didn’t have the capacity to expand in our work. Now, we can make sure what we’re already doing is sturdy, and we can imagine where else BRIDGE can go. We can get students to other arenas in the Athens community and beyond.”
“What’s important to me is that we’re about to send an increased flow of social work practice into the community..”
