PCS THRIVE - Tiered Health, Resilience, Identification, Voice, and Engagement - Phenix City Schools will implement PCS THRIVE, a five-year Project AWARE initiative serving approximately 7,000 K-12 students annually across 12 instructional settings in Russell County, Alabama, and reaching up to 35,000 student-years across five years, not an unduplicated count. The project will build a three-tiered behavioral health system for prevention, connectedness, early identification, brief school-based support, referral, crisis response, follow-up, and re-entry. Year 1 will establish governance, partnerships, a needs/resource assessment, provider MOUs, evaluation, a Month 8 strategic plan, a representative K-12 SRSS-IE pilot, and sustainability planning for Month 13 approval; districtwide screening may begin in Year 2 after readiness, response capacity, privacy, and participation procedures are verified. By Year 2, all 12 settings will implement Tier 1 and multidisciplinary procedures; at least 95% of authorized and eligible grades 6-12 students will receive SOS Signs of Suicide programming; 90% of students meeting review criteria will receive review within 5 school days and disposition within 10; and 85% of external referrals will have status or an alternative plan within 30 days. Annually, PCS will provide 500 parent/caregiver learning contacts representing at least 250 families and prepare 50 Youth Mental Health Ambassadors. All imminent-risk cases will receive same-day action, and 95% of returns will receive two-day re-entry plans.
