Creating a Mental Health Aware and Equipped Community in Central Indiana - MHAT Project Abstract
Aspire’s project “Creating a Mental Health Aware and Equipped Community in Central Indiana” will expand and enhance access to Mental Health First Aid training, Crisis Intervention Training, and Suicide Prevention training. Population to Be Served consists of the communities in our area of service in central Indiana-- Boone, Madison, and Hamilton counties and Washington and Pike townships of Marion county, focusing on citizens, veterans and their families, and professionals in these communities. Strategies/Interventions: Aspire sees two significant mental health related crises in central Indiana: teenage suicidal ideation and significant co-occurring disorders as the opioid crisis continues to rage across our state. Indiana is not equipped with the mental health professionals needed to both treat and be engaged in preventative work in a comprehensive manner. Aspire sees the need for increased training, education, and resource networking for the collective community to take shared ownership of the response to individuals with serious mental illness and those experiencing mental health crises. We plan to use Aspire Indiana staff trained in three Mental Health Awareness programs to train groups in Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), Crisis Intervention Team (CIT), and Suicide Prevention (SP), with an emphasis on safely de-escalating situations of crisis. We will provide an online option for training and make resources available to view or download from our website.
Goals and Objectives:
Goal 1: Improve the level of training in the community related to mental health disorders/mental health crises.
Objective 1.1: Provide 125 Mental Health First Aid and Suicide Prevention group training sessions to teachers/education staff, church staff, veterans and their families, teenagers, social service agencies and the general public, resulting in over 2,500 trained individuals.
Objective 1.2: Provide 16 Crisis Intervention Team group training sessions to law enforcement and first responders, resulting in 320 trained individuals.
Goal 2: Improve the ability of the general public to assist individuals in need of mental health services in accessing care.
Objective 2.1: Work with community partners to perform county specific community needs assessments and develop county-specific referral models within 9 months of grant award.
Objective 2.2: Develop county-specific tracking methods for reporting referrals.
Objective 2.3: Develop and promote a web-based, county-specific, information hub on available mental health and substance abuse providers/resources and detailed instructions on referrals, with a target goal of 70,000 page views in the first year, reaching 10% of the service area’s population.
Number to be trained by year: Year 1-- 2,820, Year 2 -- 2,820, Year 3 -- 2,820. Total: 8,460.
