Overview. The National Training and Technical Assistance Center for Child, Youth, and Family Mental Health (NTTAC) will increase adoption and implementation of evidence-based practices (EBPs) and build workforce capacity to ensure that the nation's children, youth, young adults experiencing serious emotional disturbance/serious mental illness (SED/SMI) and their families can access effective identification and early intervention, treatment, and recovery services. The Center for Applied Research Solutions (CARS) leads a multi-disciplinary partnership that includes Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, Texas Institute for Excellence in Mental Health, American Academy of Pediatrics, Change Matrix, Youth MOVE National, and Family-Run Executive Director Leadership Association (FREDLA).
Populations Served. Nationally, the NTTAC Team will provide training and technical assistance (TTA) services and materials to healthcare, community-, and school-based agencies and providers across youth and family systems. Youth and families with lived experience in the mental health system will be integrated throughout the NTTAC to ensure that services are responsive to populations served. Reducing treatment disparities is critical, and cultural and linguistic competence experts will provide TTA to support diverse communities and address service gaps and barriers.
Strategies and Interventions. The NTTAC will deliver comprehensive TTA services that are innovative and evidence-based; supportive of systems-level change; and aligned with systems of care principles of youth-guided, family-driven, and culturally competent. The NTTAC is organized into six topical Transformation Teams that will develop progressive, multimodal TTA within their content area, and collaborate across teams to leverage collective expertise. Activities include specialized knowledge transfer ECHO groups; cross-sector Training Academies; and intensive Systems Change Institutes. The NTTAC will make expert knowledge accessible and on-demand to the public through our website, mobile app, and social media.
Measurable Goals and Objectives. To support the nation's youth with SED/SMI and their families, the NTTAC will advance public education; build workforce capacity; increase adoption, implementation, and sustainability of EBPs; and foster cross-system collaboration. Eight SMART objectives will ensure that we achieve these four NTTAC goals. At the universal level, NTTAC resources will receive at least 25,000 views or interactions, increasing annually. At the targeted level, the project will engage at least 3,000 participants each year in onsite trainings and distance learning events. At the intensive level, the project will provide TA, consultation, and small-group intensive trainings to at least 1,500 individuals each year. Five-year proposed reach: 200,000.