Saturday, June 7, 2025
6/7/2025
Project AWARE - Osceola - The School District of Osceola County, Florida aims to build local capacity to promote and protect students' health, well-being, and learning ability by increasing community mental health literacy through Project AWARE - Osceola. The District will collaborate with Park Place Behavioral Health Care (local mental health agency) and Osceola County Sheriff's Office (local law enforcement agency). The project will produce a total of 13 instructors in Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) and Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA). The Program Coordinator will earn instructor certification in both MHFA and YMHFA. Eight additional mental health, law enforcement, and education representatives will become YMHFA instructors and four more will become MHFA instructors. The need in Osceola County is such that the project goal is to train substantial numbers of persons in each agency throughout the two years of the grant. Project AWARE - Osceola will aim to train 400 mental health first aiders. Targeted school district personnel will include deans, counselors and administrators in Year One and expand to teachers and other school personnel in Year Two. In law enforcement, the project will concentrate on School Resource Officers the first year and move to other personnel who work specifically with juveniles or serve on the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) to be trained in Year Two. The first year will include administrators from private schools and daycares. The plan would then move to train Boys and Girls Club leadership and personnel, hospital emergency room personnel, foster care parents, and faith-based community members. The ability to train the community to grow local knowledge of mental illness and addiction signs, symptoms, and risk factors would provide a prevention model that to date has not been available in this area.
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).