Eaton Regional Education Service Agency MHAT Grant Application - Eaton Regional Education Service Agency is applying for the Mental Health Awareness Training Grant. The application proposes to use the grant funds to build capacity in regional school districts by training school employees to be trainers in Youth Mental Health First Aid. The proposed initiative’s strategy focuses on developing and supporting YMHFA trainers who are staffed by local school districts as a part of their professional role. By training staff who have relationships with and understand the unique cultures of the schools and communities they serve, the YMHFA training demonstrates an overarching support of youth mental health by both prioritizing community- and systems-level impact and leveraging existing school administration support. The goals and objectives in the grant will be achieved by both leveraging established systems and networks and expanding these systems by growing the capacity of local school districts to provide their own training. Where district capacity does not support an internal trainer, community-level trainers will provide trainings on behalf of the district. Districts have identified barriers to trainings due to time constraints and professional development days filled with academic trainings. These barriers will be addressed by offering substitute teacher reimbursements for districts who can excuse teachers for an additional day of training, or partial salary reimbursement for teachers or other staff who attend trainings on non-contractual time, such as evenings, weekends, or during the summer. A current inventory of established YMHFA trainers will be assessed to both identify gaps in trainers for geographic and district areas and to discuss barriers with current trainers. Anticipated barriers include lapsed and outdated certifications due to the pandemic and updated curriculum, staff attrition, lack of staff resources and time, and lack of days available for professional development. Mental Health First Aid USA will be contracted with to train, recertify, and update YMHFA trainers in the service area identified in the grant. The Tri County LifeSavers Coalition, an adolescent suicide prevention coalition, will serve as a steering committee for advising this work, monitoring data, and addressing barriers. The Coalition has active participants from most local school districts and other youth-serving organizations. The LifeSavers Coalition will help to establish best practice suicide prevention training plans and policies to recommend for local district adoption for long-term sustainability. The LifeSaver’s coalition will also serve as a conduit for reviewing regional youth mental health data and will provide trainings and presentations to sustain community buy-in.
