Tuesday, May 6, 2025
5/6/2025
Increasing Mental Health Awareness and Response in Skagit County, WA - This project will serve K-12 school personnel and parents; college faculty, staff, and students; veterans; EMS and volunteer firefighters; law enforcement; and community coalition members throughout Skagit County, Washington. United General District 304 will deliver training in Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) for school staff and Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) for Higher Education, Fire and EMS, Public Safety, Veterans, and Adults. Populations of focus include K-12 students, individuals experiencing a mental health disorder, veterans, and the public. Skagit County is home to 130,575 persons who are White: 90.3%; Black or African American: 1.1%; American Indian and Alaska Native: 2.7%; Asian: 2.3%; Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander: 0.4%; Two or More Races: 3.2%; Hispanic or Latinx: 18.6%. In 2018, 20.4% of Skagit County adults reported poor mental health for at least two weeks in the past month. Project goals are to: (1) Increase the general community’s capacity to serve persons showing signs of a mental disorder, particularly Serious Mental Illness and Serious Emotional Disturbance, by establishing a formal collaboration to coordinate services of mental health awareness training and referral agencies. (2) Increase the general community’s capacity to recognize, safely respond to, and de-escalate persons from populations of focus showing signs of a mental disorder by training adults in MHFA tailored to specific audiences. (3) Increase the capacity of Skagit County EMS/volunteer firefighters, law enforcement, higher education, and veteran-serving entities to recognize, safely respond to, and de-escalate persons from populations of focus showing signs of a mental disorder by training individuals in MHFA tailored to specific audiences. (4) Increase the capacity of Skagit County school personnel, parents, and caregivers to recognize, safely respond to, and de-escalate youth showing signs of a mental disorder by training individuals in Youth MHFA. Objectives are to: convene at least five partners who will deliver MHFA trainings and establish a quarterly meeting schedule for check-in, data collection, and troubleshooting; develop written and electronic resource/support directories in both English and Spanish, for use by individuals trained in MHFA for helping persons showing signs of a mental disorder; establish a referral mechanism for connecting persons in crisis to mental health resources and services; develop a process for tracking referrals to mental health resources and services; develop a community outreach and engagement plan for grant years one through five to ensure a broad representation of community members participating in MHFA trainings; increase the number of trained MHFA/Youth MHFA trainers for all populations by five per year (at least 25 in total); train 475 coalition and community members in MHFA; train 1,625 individuals in MHFA for Fire/EMS, Public Safety, Higher Education, and/or Veterans; and train 1,500 school personnel, parents, and caregivers in Youth MHFA. The applicant will serve an average of 720 individuals annually and at least 3,600 throughout the lifetime of the project.
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).