A three-year federal grant of about $8.5 million will boost Lawrence programs designed to help children avoid drugs and violence, officials said Wednesday.

Thanks to the grant, Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center and the Lawrence public school district will lead a new effort promoting healthy child development, violence prevention and drug-free living among students in preschool through high school.

“This is a real plum,” said Marlene Merrill, a school district administrator who helped prepare the grant proposal. “This project, if successful, would be a model other communities could use.”

U.S. Sens. Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, both R-Kan., said the first year’s installment of $2.8 million was part of the Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative. It’s a program of the U.S. Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice departments.

The grant is for development of a comprehensive educational, mental health, social service, law enforcement and juvenile justice program that improves child behavior, Merrill said.

“It’s a large-scale community awareness campaign to build consistency,” Merrill said.

The school district and Bert Nash will collaborate with the Lawrence Police Department and the Lawrence Partnership for Children and Youth.

There is money in the grant to improve intervention with at-risk preschool students. Funding also will be available to hire substance-abuse prevention specialists to work with elementary school children.

“We’ve never have had any person to provide that information in elementary schools,” Merrill said.

The school district also will expand the WRAP counseling program in Lawrence schools. Grant funding will replenish federal support for the Working to Recognize Alternative Possibilities program operated by Bert Nash.

Bert Nash recently lost nearly $1 million in funding for WRAP and had to reduce the program’s scope.

As many as nine more WRAP workers will be hired to serve in schools, Merrill said.

Funding also will be available to create after-school programs for students at Central and South junior high schools.