Brian Sandoval harked back to one of the darkest days of his tenure as Nevada’s governor.

In 2013, a student brought a gun to Sparks Middle School in Washoe County, killing a teacher and injuring students before turning the weapon on himself. In the aftermath, Sandoval said he learned that the shooter had been bullied and “didn’t have anywhere to go.”

“That was the only way that they felt they could solve this issue,” said Sandoval, now the UNR president.

He said Senate Bill 165, legislation signed into law in June to bolster Nevada’s languishing workforce tackling children’s mental health, will make sure Nevada students have the resources they need.

Education leaders, lawmakers and local business executives celebrated this bill Tuesday during an event at the Raiders’ practice facility.

“SB 165 does more than adjust policy,” Nevada System of Higher Education Chair Byron Brooks said. “This bill opens the door for an entirely new generation of professionals dedicated to mental health promotion, early intervention and wellness.”

The legislation goes about that in a few different ways. First, it creates a bachelor’s-level degree for a job largely unique to Nevada: behavioral health and wellness practitioner.

Tara Raines, a senior director at the University of Oregon’s Ballmer Institute, which helped develop the new role, compared it to what already exists in the United Kingdom. There, if a child is experiencing emotional distress, a bachelor’s-level professional can screen them, provide information on managing what they’re dealing with and refer them up the chain if necessary.

That early mechanism, which can reduce the load of professional psychologists, doesn’t exist in the United States, Raines said.

The new role “will serve as that screener, that early assessment, that skill builder,” she said. It’s “what you can go to when you’re in distress while waiting for your appointment with a higher-level professional.”

UNLV, as well as UNR and Great Basin College in Elko, will run bachelor’s programs for that new role, each receiving just under $600,000 to get the effort rolling and fund related scholarships.

Nevada will start to see license-eligible graduates in May 2028, according to a tentative timeline from Raines’ presentation during Tuesday’s event. However, lacking an advanced degree, the practitioners will be supervised and cannot make diagnoses or administer psychotherapy.

“You will have all of the weight and capability and talent and energy that you will need from the University of Nevada to make sure that this is a success,” Sandoval said.

UNLV Interim President Chris Heavey, also a professor of psychology, called the day a “double Halley’s Comet moment.” Not only is it rare to see such an eclectic group backing a bill, Heavey said, but meaningful innovation in mental health is just as uncommon.

Beyond the health benefits, state Sen. Rochelle Nguyen, D-Las Vegas — who sponsored the legislation — hopes people recognize the new line of work as a “professional option.”

“You will be able to make a living, and you’ll be able to have that real impact with that bachelor’s-level degree,” she said, adding later that “we have to create that workforce for ourselves” in response to a question on the state’s health care worker shortage.

It’s a desperately needed service in Nevada. Around a fifth of American children have a major mental disorder, and only a fifth of that group receives treatment, Raines said. Even fewer end up being served in Nevada, she said.

About half of the state’s children who try to get support “find it very difficult to impossible” to get that care, Raines added.

The practitioners “should reduce the number of people who escalate to full-blown depression, because when you start feeling those symptoms, the BHWPs will give you skills to reduce your symptoms,” Raines said. “It’ll also offer support to prevent clinician burnout.”

While the state is still a few years away from seeing the practitioners in action, another major section of the legislation is further along, Nguyen said. SB 165 puts $1.2 million toward establishing an in-state child psychology internship program accredited by the American Psychological Association.

Currently, any Nevadan who wants to complete a degree in child psychology has to leave the state to do so. After people leave to complete their education somewhere else, it can be difficult to get them to come back, Raines said.

The new program will draw people from across the country to Nevada, she said. Nguyen said recruiting was already occurring for those internship positions.

“Instead of watching our future clinicians leave the state to train elsewhere, we will now cultivate and retain them here at home,” Brooks said. He added later that “this bill is not just policy, it’s progress, it’s innovation, it’s compassion and it’s a strategic investment in Nevada’s long-term mental health.”