Northeast Ohio Mental Health Awareness Training (NEO MHAT) - Northeast Ohio Mental Health Awareness Trainings (NEO MHAT) is a collaborative project spanning 69 school districts located in nine counties in Northeast Ohio, including large cities like Cleveland and Akron. NEO MHAT will utilize evidence-based mental health awareness trainings and community resource education to train teachers and relevant school personnel to connect children and youth in a school setting to appropriate mental health resources. Using Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) and Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA), NEO MHAT will train teachers and relevant school personnel on how to recognize signs and symptoms of mental disorders, how to safely de-escalate crisis situations, and will provide education on appropriate resources available in the community. The school districts NEO MHAT serves includes nearly 261,000 student, and 89,673 (34%) of those students are in the Cleveland Municipal School District or part of First Ring School Collaborative, which address poverty, diversity, mobility, and achievement gaps. For this group of children and youth, 29% are White, 54% are Black, 11% are Hispanic or Latino, 6% are English-language learners, 75% are economically disadvantaged, and 19% have a disability. According to the Northeast Ohio Youth Health Survey (2021), 35% of children and youth reported having a mental health problem and 32% had thoughts about killing themself. Of the LGBTQ youth in Ohio, 46% seriously considered suicide in the past year, 14% attempted suicide, 77% reported experiencing symptoms of anxiety, and 62% reported experiencing symptoms of depression. (Trevor Project, 2022). While there are numerous behavioral health agencies in the nine counties, teachers and relevant school personnel need mental health awareness trainings, which will allow them to identify signs and symptoms of mental disorders in children and youth and then provide education and resources to those individuals and their parents/guardians. The goals of the project are (1) certify 36 QPR instructors (12 each year over 3 years), certify 6 YMHFA instructors (2 each year over 3 years), and train 2,200 individuals in QPR or YMHFA (600 in Year 1, 800 in Year 2, and 800 in Year 3); (2) identify a diverse group of individuals to receive trainings; (3) develop written and electronic mental health resource materials for individuals trained; (4) create a referral guide for those trained and launch Hear to Help—a stigma reduction campaign designed to increase help-seeking behavior and referrals to mental health services; (5) develop and implement a mental health awareness training plan, which includes culturally and developmentally appropriate trainings and materials; (6) develop collaborative partnerships with agencies in the community to improve coordination of services; (7) utilize social media to disseminate information related to NEO MHAT; (8) develop a social marketing and awareness campaign to reduce stigma about persons with mental illness and raise awareness of the need for culturally competent and developmentally appropriate services for children and youth. NEO MHAT will consist of a partnership between Kent State University, Educational Service Center of Northeast Ohio, Stark County Educational Service Center, Alcohol Drug Addiction & Mental Health Services Board of Cuyahoga County, Stark County Mental Health and Addiction Recovery, and community agencies in Northeast Ohio.
