The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) is applying to the FY 2022 Cooperative Agreement for School-Based Trauma-Informed Support Services and Mental Health Care for Children and Youth (Trauma-Informed Services in Schools). The proposed program, “REACH Out”, will build upon the existing REACH (Resilience Education to Advance Community Healing) statewide initiative in Illinois and will collaboratively implement a comprehensive, cross-sector, multi-tiered, and equity-driven plan focusing on under resourced areas of the state, specifically rural school districts in southern Illinois and alternative schools within these areas, with an expansion to urban districts in later years of the award period. The plan is flexible enough to adapt to the unique demographics, needs, and resources of communities across the state, so that it can be replicated and sustained beyond the funding period of this application. The plan has an equity focus that will bring historically under resourced populations of students – those attending alternative schools – into focus.
Illinois has more than 850 school districts that are divided into 38 regions. ISBE has successfully implemented several initiatives recently related to social emotional learning (SEL) and trauma-informed schools including seven SEL Hubs across the state that help school districts access the REACH program. REACH trains educators, school mental health professionals, and community members to recognize the signs and symptoms of trauma and address students' social-emotional and mental health needs.
The REACH Out program will expand upon these successes by offering more depth of mental health screening, referral, and treatment services in conjunction with expanded REACH services in the most southern and rural regions of Illinois and under-resourced areas of the Chicago suburbs by partnering with four mental health community partner organizations: Center for Childhood Resilience at Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, West40, Stress and Trauma Treatment Center, Inc., and Proviso Leyden Council for Community Action.
We will serve 6,750 students and annually 180 adults across 4 years, starting with districts in the regions we have prioritized in year one and two, and focusing on Alternative Schools in year 3 and 4. REACH Out will offer training and consultation in specialized evidenced based treatment for these important student and staff populations. We will involve consultation from the statewide coordination for SEL Hubs to leverage knowledge and expertise needed to scale up this program beyond southern Illinois into urban areas of the Chicago suburbs. REACH Out will offer these schools training in screening, referral, and treatment under the evidence based models of Bounce Back, Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS), and in years 3 and 4, Structured Psychotherapy for Adolescents Responding to Chronic Stress (SPARCS), and Trauma Focused-Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT). Additionally, training will be provided in behavioral health teams, Medicaid Billing, and intensive supports in the evidence-based models through coaching and regular implementation meetings, as well as Communities of Practice about the four models.
To be successful, Illinois has chosen goals and objectives that closely mirror those of SAMHSA and will divide the goals into subgoals related to a services plan and a training plan. We look forward to the impact our unique proposal would bring to Illinois communities.