Wednesday, May 1, 2024
5/1/2024
Broward County, Florida (The County), Broward Behavioral Health Coalition (BBHC), Broward County Public Schools (BCPS), the Children's Services Council of Broward County, the Broward County Child Welfare lead agency (ChildNet), and South Florida Wellness Network (SFWN) continue a long standing partnership for the One Community Partnership 4 (OCP4) Initiative to build sustainable cross-systems infrastructure and evidence-based services capacity to improve mental health outcomes for children ages 4 through 11 years, at risk for and with serious emotional disturbances (SED), and their families, with emphasis on underserved and minority populations, specifically Black and Hispanic children and families. OCP4 will serve 25 children and their families in year 1, 58 in year 2, 57 in year 3, and 58 in year 4, with a total of 200 unduplicated children and families served. OCP4 will focus on pre and elementary school-age children to facilitate early identification and intervention, necessary for optimizing outcomes. OCP4 will bring universal mental health and trauma screening to Broward's Voluntary Prekindergarten Education Program (VPK) and elementary schools (k-5), using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) screening instrument. Mental Health Screeners will partner with VPK and elementary schools, prioritizing and starting in designated underserved and predominantly minority population areas within Broward County. Partnerships with schools will include engaging and training school personnel in the screening process, to establish sustainable universal mental health and trauma screening throughout Broward County's VPK and elementary schools. OCP4 will screen 360 children in year 1, 1,000 in year 2, 1,000 in year 3, and 1,000 in year 4, with total of 3,360 children screened. OCP4 will also create a referral pathway and will expand and enhance Broward's children and families System of Care to facilitate provision of trauma-informed and culturally and linguistically responsive evidence-based interventions. For further assessment, children at risk for SED will be referred to BBHC'S System-Level Care Coordination Program that will facilitate service linkage using the Child and Adolescents Needs and Strengths (CANS), a comprehensive assessment with components to assess both trauma and suicide risk. The CANS will be utilized to determine appropriate and least restrictive levels of care. Children presenting with SED will be placed in High Fidelity Wraparound, through which children and families will be engaged in evidence-based child and family treatment, services, and supports, tailored to each family's unique needs and strengths, health beliefs, language, and customs. OCP4's core service array will include Parent Child Interaction Therapy, the Triple P Positive Parenting Program, Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral and Equestrian Trauma Therapies, and family peer support. Families will be linked with SFWN, Broward's recovery-focused support network run and fully staffed by youth, adult, and family peers and home to Broward's Chapters for Federation of Families and Youth M.O.V.E., to access educational and social recovery-oriented activities. OCP's primary goals are to improve child and family functioning while reducing school absenteeism and utilization of acute/institutional levels of care. The OCP4 Children's Mental Health Initiative grant will provide Broward the opportunity to expand the existing System of Care into a younger population of focus, building capacity for early identification of children at risk for and with serious emotional disturbances, ensuring equitable access to and benefit from needed services and supports by supporting systems level change.
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).
