Wednesday, February 5, 2025
2/5/2025
Yakama Nation School-based Trauma Informed Support Services and Mental Health Care for Children (YN-TISS) Project will increase Native students' access to evidenced-based culturally relevant trauma support services and behavioral health care by strengthening the partnership between Yakama Nation, Yakama Nation Behavioral Health Services, Toppenish Public School District (TPSD), Wapato Public School District (WPSD), and the Yakama Nation Tribal School (YNTS). The YN-TISS project will serve school age native students from pre-k to age 12 (ages 3-21) who attend schools on the Yakama Nation Reservation Lands or in the surrounding communities. Over the course of the four year grant, YN-TISS expects to reach 350 school age children and youth who have experienced trauma or are struggling with a mental health or substance use challenge through improved screening, referral, and treatment systems at TPSD, WPSD, and YNTS. YN TISS will focus its activities on eight goals. 1. Fully staff the YN-TISS project 2. Formalize partnerships with TPSD, WPSD, and YNTS 3. Develop and operationalize a school-based trauma-informed support and mental health services implementation plan 4. Identify and plan to address barriers to accessing behavioral health services 5. Develop and implement a training plan for educators and Behavioral Health professionals 6. Develop and implement a family and community engagement plan 7. Establish a local interagency agreement among education, early childhood education, juvenile justice, child welfare, Head Start, Health Care and other community Tribal agencies 8. Develop a sustainability plan YN TISS will pursue these goals by hiring a project director, evaluator, and an implementation team that includes a training coordinator, family educator, three school-based mental health therapists, and a behavioral health aid. The project director will work with YNBHS and its school partners to review each district's current system for identifying, screening, referring, and treating the behavioral health needs of Native students and their families and use this information to develop a plan to strengthen each district's system based on its needs, capacity, and resources. The Training coordinator will lead the team in developing a training plan and will partner with YNBHS staff to train TPSD, WPSD, and YN Tribal School personnel on ACEs, trauma, behavioral health, and the district's referral protocols for behavioral health and crisis services. The family educator and project director will strengthen efforts to engage Native families and community members to increase awareness of the impact of generational and historical trauma on the family. The school-based therapists and behavioral health aid will provide trauma-informed evidence-based mental health interventions to Native students and their families. YN and YNBHS will also partner with local education agencies. Tribal Law Enforcement, and other key child-serving Tribal organizations to establish a local interagency agreement that ensures that regardless of the identifying agency all native children and youth will have access to developmentally and culturally appropriate trauma informed behavioral health services.
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).