Thursday, May 2, 2024
5/2/2024
The Health Research and Educational Trust of NJ will work closely with the Mental Health Association in NJ to implement a mental health awareness training program that focuses on veterans and military families, titled "Mental Health First Aid: Increasing Mental Health Literacy, Reducing Stigma Among Veterans, Their Families and Service Providers." The evidence-based program Mental Health First Aid will be used to train 1,260 veterans, caregivers of veterans and military families, and service providers who focus on or have regular contact with veterans and military families, throughout New Jersey. The focus of the proposed project is to train seven teams of Certified MHFA Instructors - comprised of one veteran and one mental health professional per team - to provide MHFA training, most often using the "Mental Health First Aid for Military Members, Veterans, and their Families" module. A train-the-trainer model is proposed as a method to maximize the number of individuals trained in the timeframe of this project. Project activities coalesce around a multi-wave training approach that allows military peers and providers to receive and then provide critical training, while working with veterans and military families. This approach allows the project to have far reaching effects and provides multiple environments (including early and late adopters) to measure the process and outcomes associated with project implementation. The goals of this project are to: (1) Increase mental health literacy among veteran/military peers and service providers, as well as caregivers and military families, and their capacity to de-escalate crisis situations and make appropriate mental health referrals; and (2) Increase access to mental health services, particularly among veterans and military families, by training the peers and providers who contact them on the unique needs of this population and the available resources in the community. Project objectives include: (1) By January 2019, project partners will have developed a referral mechanism to drive collaboration between mental health providers and social service networks; (2) By February 2019, MHANJ staff will have screened and identified a cohort of seven veterans, each paired with a mental health professional, and trained them as Certified MHFA Instructors; (3) By the end of Year 3, Certified MHFA Instructors will have trained 1,260 individuals, from at least 40 organizations, in Mental Health First Aid, particularly the MHFA for Veterans module (210 in Year 1; 525 in Year 2; 525 in Year 3); (4) By the end of Year 3, HRETNJ will have hosted added-value webinars, attended by at least 50% of previously trained individuals and/or 50 professionals in the mental health and related workforce, on mental health-related topics (e.g., opioid crisis); and (5) By the end of Year 3, trained individuals will have logged at least 1,000 referrals (in total) to mental health or related services for veterans and military families.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
