Solvista Health will address behavioral health disparities for youths ages 12-21 living in our rural and frontier catchment area whose family incomes are at or below 265% of the Federal Poverty Level. By fully implementing CCBHC, Solvista Health seeks to address important gaps in central Colorado's behavioral health continuum of care, improve health equity, and more effectively deliver community-based service to youth and families. The geographic catchment area where services will be delivered includes four counties and spans 3,650 square miles of picturesque valleys and dramatic Rocky Mountain peaks, home to a total population of 80,555 individuals. Chaffee, Fremont, and Lake counties are rural, while Custer county is designated frontier. We will increase measurement based care, yielding better outcomes and ability to analyze population health level data and increase physical health screenings to improve whole person care.
Isolation in our rural high-county, socioeconomic stressors, and the persisting impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are all driving mental health and substance use challenges for youth in our region to crisis levels. Over 15% of youth seriously considered attempting suicide over the past 12 months and more than 13% made a plan for attempting suicide. Heartbreakingly, nearly 7% of Colorado youth attempted to kill themselves over the same period. In all measures, students identifying as non-white and/or LGBTQIA+ fare far worse than their white, cisgender, and heterosexual peers. Accordingly, within our population of focus, we recognize the disproportionate impact of our identified behavioral health disparities on youth in our rural region belonging to the Hispanic/Latinx and/or LGBTQIA+ communities.
We will impact the identified behavioral health disparities through improved outreach and engagement; navigation, care management, and family support for youth and families; and enhanced access to patient-centered treatment meeting the unique needs of each client. The behavioral health disparities the grant will impact for our population of focus are low levels of screening, assessment, and diagnosis for behavioral health challenges; barriers to accessing a full continuum of behavioral healthcare; and insufficient supports for families and youth-serving agencies to meet youth's behavioral health needs.