Thursday, April 3, 2025
4/3/2025
MATAspire: Mental health Awareness Tailored App for Substance Prevention and Integrated Resilience Education - California State University, Northridge (CSUN) seeks a five-year grant to build campus community capacity to reduce the onset and progression of substance misuse and strengthen mental health coping skills among underserved students within the surrounding San Fernando Valley community in north Los Angeles County. The Valley is largely Hispanic, more than 40% foreign born, and comprised predominantly of low-income families. CSUN is a Hispanic Serving Institution with 70% of its students underserved; and supports educational growth and community health and wellbeing to the Valley population. National College Health Assessment reports tom 2021 show that of those surveyed, 24% of CSUN students used cannabis in the last three months, 57% used alcohol, and of those, 36% consumed five or more drinks at least once within the last two weeks. Additionally, 75% of students at CSUN in 2021 reported moderate to serious psychological distress, and only 6.5% received services on campus. Such statistics underscore the need for innovative initiatives that integrate substance misuse prevention and mental health coping skills. With this project, CSUN aims to develop and implement an innovative substance use prevention and coping skills app (MATAspire: Mental health Awareness Tailored App for Substance Prevention and Integrated Resilience Education) in partnership with University Counseling Services and other CSUN community partners to address the following essential needs: provide accessible, evidence-based, and culturally relevant substance misuse prevention and resilience coping strategies to underserved students; and increase promotion and awareness of substance misuse and mental health, resilience and wellness services to the campus community. We aim to meet these needs and increase the CSUN community infrastructure via three evidence-based intervention strategies aligned with SAMHSA’s strategic prevention framework: (1) provide five 15-minute interactive substance misuse prevention modules via app platform; (2) include a sixth mental health, resilience and wellbeing coping skills app module; and (3) develop a CSUN community initiative to educate and increase awareness of substance misuse and mental health and wellbeing resources on campus. These strategies are achieved via the following objectives: (1) recruit 200 students yearly, for a total of 1,000 students across five years, to participate in the MATAspire program; (2) increase substance misuse prevention knowledge and protective coping skills awareness by 25% among MATAspire participants; (3) reach 1,000 underserved students each year, for a total of 4,000 students, through a culturally-responsive on-campus outreach campaign to create awareness of, and reduce stigma associated with, substance misuse and mental health and wellbeing support services; (4) increase campus-wide utilization of substance misuse and mental health prevention services by at least 10%; and (5) reduce past 30-day substance use, and reports of symptoms of depression and anxiety by 20% among MATAspire participants. All program components are designed to integrate with existing substance use prevention and mental health and wellbeing strategies at CSUN.
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).