Saturday, November 23, 2024
11/23/2024
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s (DPI) Project AWARE program seeks to expand upon previous work in the area of school-based mental health to innovate and better solidify methods by which schools can positively impact student mental health, with a continuum from prevention to treatment services. The project will serve, indirectly, the ~800,000 students in the State of Wisconsin, and the 14,000 students in three target Local Education Agencies (LEA’s). (La Crosse, Chippewa Falls, and the Lakeland Area Consortium). Rural schools are often the hub of their communities, and have been chosen because of the mounting family stressors in rural areas, and the significant access barriers and mental health provider shortages. Schools can play a significant role in providing or linking students and their families to mental health and other family support services within and outside of the school. The DPI is poised to scale up a comprehensive approach to school mental health statewide through an emerging regional infrastructure, on-line learning resources, and a cohort peer learning model. The goals of this project reflect student and family needs in project LEA’s and districts across Wisconsin: (1) increase the capacity for schools to respond to onsite mental health crises, (2) increase youth and family voice and authentic engagement, (3) improve cross-system collaboration to improve mental health supports and (4) increase access and engagement in mental health treatment for children and youth. Strategies to address these goals include training staff to develop mental health crisis plans, providing parent peer support and mental health navigation to families, including a clear and concise referral pathway, developing community collaboration teams, training adults in Youth Mental Health First Aid, and utilizing the School Health Improvement and Performance (SHAPE) System to improve quality and sustainability. Wisconsin’s plan also allows for local innovation. LEAs will choose evidence based strategies in promoting resiliency and pro-social behaviors and building mental health literacy of students. With the support of federal funds, many new comprehensive school mental health resources have been developed at the state and local levels. As a result, there is a need to bridge the gap from theory to practice, and fine-tune methods for effective implementation in the school environment. Through the use of integration and alignment strategies, evidenced-based and promising practices will be designed and implemented in a way that complement, and not compete with each other. As local laboratories, the LEAs will help to refine the most effective ways to create equitable and comprehensive school and community mental health service delivery systems that will act as models for how to improve the well-being of students across Wisconsin.
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).
