Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training Program for Paraprofessionals - Applicant Organization: Affiliated Service Providers of Indiana, Inc. d/b/a ASPIN Address: 850 N. Harrison Street Warsaw, IN 46580-3163 Website: www.aspin.org Project Director Information: Tiffany Hamilton, thamilton@aspin.org Phone: 317-471-0000 Fax: 317-735-0019 The ASPIN Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training Program for Paraprofessionals (BPP) will expand and enhance its existing Certified Community Health Workers (CCHW) training program and the opportunity to participate in ASPIN’s U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Registered Apprenticeship Program, by expanding community-based experiential training to increase the skills, knowledge and capacity of students preparing to become CCHWs or Certified Community Health Workers/Certified Peer Recovery Support Specialists (CPRSS) to work with children, adolescents, and transitional age youth. CCHWs will increase their skills and develop knowledge and understanding of children, adolescents, and transitional-age youth who have experienced trauma and are at risk for behavioral health disorders, including anxiety, depression, and substance use disorder. Needs Addressed: The youth mental health crisis is compounded by a severe workforce shortage marked by a pervasive behavioral health provider shortage. ASPIN aims to increase the behavioral health workforce with the addition of CCHWs that are prepared to work with children, adolescents, and transitional age youth that have experienced trauma and are at risk for mental health disorders in high need, high demand areas, with a special focus on rural communities, across the state of Indiana. Proposed Services: CCHWs and CCHWs/CPRSSs provide services and work in a wide variety of settings, including but not limited to community-based, K-12, Community Mental Health Centers, Federally Qualified Health Centers, Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics and youth serving organizations. The recruitment of CHWs and CRPSSs from rural and other high-need, high-demand areas will increase capacity for clinicians and increase accessibility, continued treatment engagement, and improved outcomes for the clients served. Certified Community Health Workers will support these goals through apprenticeship opportunities and job placement on interdisciplinary teams, working with children, adolescents, and transitional age youth that have experienced trauma, connecting them and when needed, their families, to resources within their community to address trauma, mental health needs, as well as social drivers of health that if untreated or unaddressed can exacerbate the impact of trauma, leading to significant long-term negative impacts on the health outcomes of the clients they serve and the community as a whole. Using a trauma informed approach, CCHWs can assist children, adolescents, and transitional age youth and families in building the skills needed to promote resiliency and connecting them to resources that assist in building protective factors such as after-school programs, mentoring, sports, and other extracurricular activities Groups Served: Children, adolescents, and transitional age youth who have experienced trauma and their families in high-need high demand areas, focusing on rural communities. ASPIN is requesting Funding Priority 1: Role of the family and the lived experience of the consumer and family paraprofessional partnership and Funding Preference Qualification 1: High Rate.
