Thursday, November 21, 2024
11/21/2024
The proposed project known as the K - 12 Mental Health Awareness Partnership (MHAP) will focus on all K-12 students enrolled within 18 Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) and 3 Area Vocational Technical Schools (AVTS) across a five-county region in rural central Pennsylvania, with emphasis on those youth with serious mental illness (SMI) and serious emotional disability (SED). There will be a combination of evidence-based programs (EBPs) implemented to address the needs of these populations. Specifically, Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) and Question-Persuade-Refer (QPR) will be provided through the project. Further, these EBPs will be aligned with the scale up of the Positive Behavior Intervention and Support framework across these LEAs/AVTS within this five-county region. The individuals to receive mental health awareness training will be 1) educational staff (e.g., professional educators, counselors/nurses/psychologists/social workers/school resource officers, building and central office administrators, cafeteria workers, bus drivers and secretaries) that interact directly with K - 12 students in the 18 Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) and 3 Area Vocational Technical Schools (AVTS) that comprise a large geographic region in Pennsylvania including Columbia, Montour, Snyder, Union and Northumberland counties in tandem with 2) members from targeted community organizations that provide support to youth and their families in the region (e.g., local law enforcement, medical professionals, and faith-based leaders).This rural region is comprised a total population of 264,674 residents, 29,672 of which are school-age youth. There are 3,905 instructional administrative and support staff employed by the 18 LEAs and 3 AVTS within this five-county region. These LEA/AVTS employees are comprised of professional educators (e.g., teachers, principals, mental health clinicians) as well as other staff (e.g., para-professionals, cafeteria workers, clerical assistants). The goals of the project are to 1) increase the capacity of the LEAs/AVTS staff within this five-county region to increase help seeking behaviors of, and for, youth who appear to indicate signs of depression and suicide risk, and 2) increase the capacity of targeted community members across this rural region to help youth with emphasis of those youth with SMI/SED who appear to display signs of depression and suicide risk to access mental health assessments in order to leverage mental health supports and services. The objectives of this project are to provide training in YMHFA and QPR to the critical mass of educational staff and strategic portions of targeted community groups. This will be accomplished by establishing a sustainable network of YMHFA and QPR trainers within this 5-county region. This training provided through this regional network will result in 450 educational staff and 90 targeted community members completing training in the first year, with 2,250 educational staff and 450 targeted community members completing training by the end of the project. The impact of these trainings will be gauged through pre-post assessments associated with trainings across the EBPs in tandem with analyses of referral rates in both the schools and community.
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).
