Thursday, November 21, 2024
11/21/2024
Children’s Institute’s (CII) Mental Health Awareness Training Project will address the needs of trauma-exposed youth and parents in high-risk, under-resourced communities across Los Angeles. CII will increase community capacity to support individuals with mental health and social-emotional issues by providing training using the Mental Health First Aid and Youth Mental Health First Aid models and linking individuals to long-term supports. CII will focus on two primary target populations for mental health awareness training: school staff and teachers at middle and high schools, and family support staff who work with parents in Head Start/Early Head Start and other social support programs. Teachers and school staff will be trained to address the needs of adolescents 12-18 years old. Family support staff will be trained to address the needs of parents and caregivers. CII will utilize two strategies to achieve our goals: widespread community training using the evidence-based Mental Health First Aid and Youth Mental Health First Aid models, and training to increase referrals to evidence-based, trauma-informed mental health services, primarily those offered by CII and leveraged through our existing contract with the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health. The project’s primary goal is to increase community capacity to identify and support individuals with mental health issues by providing mental health awareness training. This will be achieved through two objectives: 1) within three months of award, completing a mental health awareness training plan to guide implementation over the five-year grant term, and 2) providing training for school staff, teachers, and family support staff across Los Angeles County (at least 250 individuals trained in Year 1, 300 in Year 2, 350 annually in Years 3 through 5, a total of 1,600 over the grant term). A secondary goal for the project is to increase the availability and accessibility of evidence-based mental health services by establishing and increasing awareness of referral mechanisms to mental health and social-emotional support services. This will be achieved through the following two objectives: 1) train teachers, school personnel, and family support staff across Los Angeles County on the mechanisms for referring individuals to mental health services (at least 250 individuals trained in Year 1, 300 in Year 2, 350 in Years 3 through 5, a total of 1,600 over the grant term), and 2) increasing referrals to mental health services from organizations that have staff who participate in CII’s mental health awareness training – at least 250 referrals in Year 1 and 300 referrals annually for Years 2-5 (a total of 1,450 referrals). Over the grant term, this project will provide mental health awareness training for a total of 1,600 individuals in our community and will lead to 1,450 referrals for mental health care.
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).
