Starting Point Behavioral Healthcare (SPBH), together with the other members of the Northeast Florida Behavioral Health Network (NFBHN), a partnership across Northeast Florida with a footprint of 4,235 square miles and a population of 1,627,550, have committed to coordinate, strengthen, and expand efforts to provide community based mental health awareness training, education, and social marketing to youth, young adults, and their families.
Our community trainers are certified in Adult MHFA to include population specific modules for Higher Education, Fire and EMS, Law Enforcement, Corrections and Public Safety, Veterans, Services Members and their families, Older Adults, and Rural Communities; Youth MHFA, and Teen MHFA as well as QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) Gatekeeper Training (suicide prevention). SPBH is requesting funding to support, expand, and sustain our Talkable Communities that is teaching individuals how to respond appropriately and safely when they encounter someone who may be developing a mental health problem, or experiencing a mental health, suicide, substance abuse, or other crisis-related issue. SPBH and the rest of the NFBHN aims to decrease area service gaps by increasing capacity through our combined strength, and collective purpose by: (1) training individuals to recognize the signs and symptoms of mental health and substance use disorders, particularly serious mental illness (SMI) and/or, serious emotional disturbances (SED); Develop a referral system and feedback loop to (2) establish linkages with schools and/or community-based mental health agencies to refer individuals with the signs or symptoms of mental illness to appropriate services, coping strategies, and referrals to local resources (including the five (5) network partners); (3) train emergency services personnel, law enforcement, and others to identify persons with a mental disorder and employ crisis de-escalation techniques; focusing on School Resource Officers and law enforcement that work with Mobile Response Teams (MRT), (4) educate individuals about resources that are available in the community for individuals with a mental disorder. Awareness and education activities directed at understanding current mental health status and attitudes towards mental wellbeing across all six (6) counties will involve providing MHFA and QPR to the community, professionals, and (5) Special populations including, parents/caregivers of children and youth with SED or have been involved with a MRT call, Baker Act (involuntary hospitalization), Overdose, and Pediatricians/Family care providers across the region. The project will provide tMHFA to the entirety of 10th grade students in Nassau County Schools and support network partners to ensure they will have full capacity to reach their service area with trained and prepared staff, necessary materials, and project branding. SPBH will work in collaboration with the network of partners to identify 1) remaining service gaps in training (i.e., who still needs to be trained) and 2) changes in need of the region’s priority, or focus, populations (i.e., who is the training intended to help). SPBH and the other members of the NFBHN will train 2200 individuals each year for a total of 11,000 individuals trained over the five-year project period.
