Thursday, November 21, 2024
11/21/2024
Through the CMHC project, Spring River Mental Health & Wellness, Inc. (Spring River) will provide the training, infrastructure, and staffing needed to deliver appropriate services for unmet needs due to the pandemic experienced by children and adults with SED, SMI, and COD who live, work, and go to school in Cherokee County, Kansas. Spring River will hire additional staff to increase services to school districts, decrease daytime cancellations due to crisis intervention, decrease nighttime crisis assessments by daytime clinicians, increase technological infrastructure, and provide staff with resources to address their own mental health needs. Spring River serves Cherokee County in the southeast corner of Kansas. It is bordered to the east by Missouri and to the south by Oklahoma. While most of the county population is White (88%); Hispanic (2.6%), Mixed Races (6.4%), and Native Americans (1.8%) make up most of the minority population in the county. Thirteen percent of the general population live at or below the federal poverty level, though individuals from mixed races and Native Americans are living in poverty at higher rates or 20.9% and 29.6%, respectively. Nearly one-third of children live at or below 200% of the federal poverty level, which is the level at which federal and state Medicaid is available for children. There are 11.5% of the population in the county without any health insurance, which is higher than the state average of 9.2% and the national average of 8.8%. Over one-third of Native American children (35.6%) have no health insurance compared to only 8.4% of White children. Project goals are to 1) increase access to mental health services, including services in the schools for children and services for individuals in law enforcement custody; 2) increase crisis response services to individuals with SED, SMI, and COD; 3) strengthen the infrastructure for HIPAA compliant telehealth so more nighttime assessments can be completed via telehealth by clinicians and fewer cancellations occur during the day due to after-hours work or challenging winter weather conditions; 4) increase staff knowledge of the impact of poverty and the skills and tools to address trauma to improve the outcomes for individuals with SMI, SED, and COD; and 5) improve the mental health of staff to reduce turnover and overwork. Spring River will provide new services to 200 unduplicated clients each year, totaling 400 clients over two years. Spring River will meet the project goals and increased client target by reaching measurable objectives including hiring a new school-based therapist to serve five school districts; hiring dedicated crisis staff to reduce daytime cancellations due to crisis, contracting with Healthsource Integrated Solutions to provide after-hours crisis intervention to decrease the number of assessments done by Spring River day time clinicians; retaining and adding Zoom licenses for faster nighttime assessments; increasing staff knowledge and use of evidence-based practices including trauma-informed assessment; and purchasing a mental health wellness app and fitness memberships for staff to increase their willingness to address their own mental health needs.
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).
