Friday, April 4, 2025
4/4/2025
CONCORD CHILDREN'S INTERCONNECTED SYSTEMS - Through the Concord Children's Interconnected Systems Project, the Concord School District (CSD), in direct collaboration with Riverbend Community Mental Health Center, will serve as a hub for school-based mental health services, family behavioral health education, and timely facilitated referrals for external clinical care. As New Hampshire's capital city, Concord is home to over 4,000 pre-K through grade 12 public school students, more than a third of whom qualify for free or reduced lunch. All five elementaries, the single middle school, and the sole high school are perennially Title I schools, and at any given time, 80-150 of our students experience homelessness. As the state's most common refugee resettlement community, Concord has welcomed thousands of New American students to its schools over the past decade. Pre-pandemic, 35% of CSD high schoolers reported symptoms of clinical depression; that figure has risen to 39%, as has the number who have seriously considered suicide (23%). The overarching goals of the project are to: 1) Build the capacity of stakeholders with a shared interest in and responsibility for children's mental health through intentional collaboration, workforce development, community-wide training, and codified policy change; 2) Implement tier 1, preventative approaches in classrooms, preschool - grade 12, to create an equitable school climate that supports students' behavioral health needs in a post-COVID world; 3) Respond to the increasing need for targeted interventions through expanded social work and alternative education capacity at the middle school, the facilitation of skills groups in the elementary schools, and the implementation of restorative practices at the secondary level; and 4) Mitigate barriers to clinical care needed by school-aged youth and young adults with SED/SMI by establishing responsive pathways to school- and community-based individual therapy, Wraparound, and crisis intervention. To respond to the increased behavioral health needs of students, care coordination infrastructure is a chief priority; two CMHC/School Liaisons and a Home-to-School Liaison will be the conduit between the school district, community mental health center, and families to effectively facilitate co-located services, participate in a multi-tiered system of supports for behavioral health and wellness (MTSS-B), and support school- and community-based prevention programming. The District and Riverbend will partner with the State Departments of Health & Human Services and Education, youth- and family-serving entities (e.g. Concord Family YMCA, Parent Information Center), and local health and social service providers (e.g. Waypoint, Community Bridges) for training and technical assistance. Tier 1 prevention programming, including evidence-based, developmentally appropriate mental health training and social-emotional instruction with a trauma-responsive lens, will benefit all students in the district, with a targeted focus on primary grades and middle school. This project will also clinically serve 10% of our student population through tier 2/3 services per year for a total of 1,600 unduplicated youth enrolled in school- and/or clinic-based mental health services throughout the project. We will work with no fewer than 800 families, through training and family therapies, project-wide.
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).