Little Rock receives $1M federal grant to support hiring 2 social workers based at Stephens Elementary

Funding from U.S. Justice Department to aid efforts in reducing youth violence

Mayor Frank Scott Jr., far left, speaks at a press conference about the Community Schools Initiative at the Stephens Community Center on Monday, Dec. 20, 2021. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Colin Murphey)
Mayor Frank Scott Jr., far left, speaks at a press conference about the Community Schools Initiative at the Stephens Community Center on Monday, Dec. 20, 2021. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Colin Murphey)


Little Rock officials said Monday that the city has been awarded a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to support work related to the city's community schools initiative.

The federal grant will add to efforts to reduce violence through the community schools model, Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr. said at a news conference to announce the grant award. He was joined by a series of other officials at Stephens Community Center, which shares the same complex as Stephens Elementary School.

Stephens is one of the four elementary schools that currently make up the city's community schools network. The others named as part of the initiative in 2020 were Booker T. Washington Elementary, Chicot Elementary and Watson Elementary.

The community schools initiative developed between the city and the Little Rock School District has sought to incorporate wraparound services and opportunities for engagement with an eye to having schools function like neighborhood hubs.

The $1 million grant from the Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation Program is titled, "Community schools as a hub for promoting personal resilience and neighborhood empowerment," according to the city's chief education officer, Jay Barth.

With the grant, the city will hire two social workers to be based at Stephens. One will focus primarily on what is going on inside the school and the other on the external community, Barth said, but the two officials will work as partners.

Through a combination of grants and city funds, "we are now on the path to having social workers in place at all four community schools in the next couple of months, and that's a great accomplishment," he said at the news conference.

Barth suggested the grant will aid efforts to promote community schools as hubs that help meet needs of parents and community members.

A key challenge facing a number of Little Rock neighborhoods is violence that results in trauma for individuals of all ages, including those in their earliest and most formative years, Barth explained.

A program created through the grant will provide services "to protect and empower those who have been too often the victims of violence, particularly violence that take[s] place under their own roof," said Barth, who was hired in late 2019.

The programs to be offered at Stephens Elementary and the community center "have as their ultimate goals the promotion of trust between police and neighborhood residents and the empowerment of residents in making their community safer and less violent," he said.

Barth said work that led to the grant began during his second week as Little Rock's chief education officer when he and a then-city colleague, Melissa Bridges, began meeting with a team from the University of Arkansas' Department of Sociology and Criminology.

Funding from the Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation Program is distributed through the Bureau of Justice Assistance, part of the Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs.

In addition to Barth and Scott, other speakers at the news conference were outgoing Little Rock School District Superintendent Mike Poore, Ward 3 City Director Kathy Webb, Stephens Elementary Principal Phillip Carlock and U.S. Rep. French Hill.

Hill said that "what Dr. Barth has laid out today is a strategy to engage those families in some of our toughest neighborhoods and bring food, health, education and safety all under one roof."


Upcoming Events