Money may not be able to buy happiness but it certainly can help bolster a program designed to help people dealing with behavioral challenges and to train and provide research opportunities for budding professionals.

That’s what we expect will happen with Northern Michigan University’s Behavioral Education, Assessment and Research, or BEAR, Center.

Set up in 2017 to provide therapy services to those with autism and other behavioral disorders in under-represented rural areas and to serve as a clinical and research site for students pursuing careers in the field, the facility has been notified that it has been awarded a state grant of nearly $500,000.

The funding will be used to “reach wider populations in more diverse settings in the Upper Peninsula, and to train more providers,” according to a news release from NMU and Mining Journal coverage of the issue.

“The BEAR Center’s mission is threefold,” BEAR Center Director Jacob Daar said in the Journal story. “It gives our community access to quality behavior analytic services, provides training and professional development to future and current behavior analysts and facilitates student and faculty research in the areas of clinical practice and management. The health fund grant will help us to achieve this mission in several ways.”

Up until now, the population helped by the BEAR Center was limited to ages 2-6 years. The grant will permit expansion to 2-22 years old and address a wider range of behavioral difficulties.

This is great news for not only U.P. residents but BEAR Center students. We look for the program to receive a tremendous boost.

Want more information? Visit https://www.nmu. edu/bear/home or call 906-227-2994.