Saturday, November 23, 2024
11/23/2024
Sinai Health System proposes to continue Promoting Awareness of Mental Health in Chicago’s Underserved Communities (PAMH) with the goal of increasing mental health awareness among individuals who interact and come into contact with persons with a serious mental illness (SMI) or serious emotional disturbance (SED) in an expanded service area of medically underserved communities in West, Northwest and Southwest Chicago. To achieve this goal, the PAMH project will train 80 unduplicated individuals per year for a total of 400 individuals trained by 2026. It will continue and further develop a bilingual webinar series begun during the COVID crisis that attracted 468 participants. Sinai has identified individuals from low-income, minority, LGBTQ, immigrant, and deaf and/or hard of hearing (DHH) communities as the populations of focus. The most frequently reported clinical characteristics in the geographic catchment area are depression (48%), anxiety (36%), acculturative stress (34%), need for parental support (29%), trauma (27%), anger (23%), feelings of isolation (23%), and need for relationship support (19%) (CMHA, 2017). Sinai’s Under the Rainbow Program (UTR), which has functioned as part of the outpatient programs of the Sinai Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, has identified that 11% have been diagnosed with depression, 5% have anxiety disorders, 5% have bipolar disorders, 5% have oppositional defiant disorder, and, disturbingly, 7% have experienced post-traumatic stress disorders. As high as 85% of people surveyed in some communities witnessed or experienced traumatic events. In the adult population, Sinai sees high incidence of medical comorbidities and high-risk behaviors leading to involvement with the justice system, disability, hospitalizations, and substance abuse. The program coordinator and five Sinai behavioral health clinicians are certified as Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) trainers and multilingual enabling initiatives to a broad and diverse training audience. The target audience to receive mental health awareness training includes individuals who are likely to encounter the focus populations, such as teachers, school personnel, parents, faith leaders, and community leaders. The project has trained and will train individuals whose immediate response could be critical in the resolution of a situation, such as police, first responders, and health care promoters (e.g., primary care physicians and health care coordinators). Additionally, in the wake of COVID, the program developed bilingual webinars that are now in demand across these underserved communities; 468 people have participated since April 2020. The measurable objectives are to 1) increase the aptitude of mental health literacy and train at least 400 persons, 2) increase the numbers of organizations receiving Sinai developed webinars to support mental health awareness, 3) improve the cultural competency of the training audience, and 4) improve knowledge of resources and increase referrals for individuals with signs or symptoms of mental illness.
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).
