AL Discretionary Funding Fiscal Year 2017

The goal of Alabama Project LAUNCH is to provide effective services and systems linkages to address early childhood mental health of young children so that they develop optimally enter school ready, and experience success, Project activities build on existing priorities from the Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems plan, Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Needs Assessment, and Early Childhood Advisory Council.

The purpose of the Alabama Youth Suicide Prevention Program (YSPP) is to develop and implement statewide youth suicide prevention and early intervention strategies that will include collaboration among schools, educational institutions, juvenile justice systems, foster care systems, substance abuse and mental health programs, and other child and youth-supporting organizations. These activities and others will be utilized to reduce suicide deaths and non-fatal suicide attempts among adolescents in Alabama, ages 10-24, of all races and ethnicities. The Alabama Department of Public Health will partner with the Alabama Suicide Prevention and Resource Coalition, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and five crisis centers located in North, North Central, Central, Southeast, and Southwest Alabama, that will serve as behavioral health service providers to provide services at the state level as well as the community level. The multifaceted approach will allow for multiple exposure and intervention methods as well as a larger degree of community engagement for Alabama's youth population, which suffered from 11.7 suicides per 100,000 in 2013.

The goals for the YSPP that are to be achieved by 2020 are to: 1) decrease the rate of adolescents (ages 15-24) who complete suicide from 11.7 to 9.2 per 100,000; 2)decrease the percentage of high school students who seriously considered attempting suicide from 18.1 to 13.1 percent; 3) decrease the percentage of high school students who made a plan about how they would attempt suicide from 14.3 to 13.8 percent; 4) decrease the percentage of high school students who attempted suicide from 10.4 to 8.9 percent; and 5) decrease the percentage of high school students who attempted suicide that resulted in an injury, poisoning, or overdose that had to be treated by a doctor or nurse from 3.6 to 2.1 percent.

The Alabama State University (ASU) Suicide Prevention Project will work through the gatekeepers on to provide training, information, awareness and education regarding mental health, substance use, suicide prevention and intervention. The purpose of the ASU Suicide Prevention Project is to: reduce suicide ideation, attempts and deaths among college students on the ASU campus. To that end, the goal the project is to reduce the incidence of contemplated, attempted and completed suicides on the ASU campus while increasing protective factors that will assist in preventing suicide and their attempts. We will increase knowledge about suicide, risk factors, protective factors, and crisis response to ASU students, faculty and staff; create greater awareness and sensitivity to suicide and its stressors/risk factors among the ASU community (students, faculty, and staff); and increase the capacity of the ASU campus faculty, staff and students to respond to persons contemplating and/or attempting suicide and build campus infrastructure and capacity to effectively handle these incidents in the event they occur.

The Assisted Outpatient Treatment Program (AOT) is designed to provide increased support and services to at least 75 adult individuals with a serious mental illness per year in Baldwin County, Alabama. The target population is individuals who have a history of multiple involuntary psychiatric hospitalizations, frequent encounters with law enforcement which include arrests, limited social support, limited insight into their diagnosis, homelessness, poor physical healthcare access, and a history of failed treatment compliance with traditional outpatient services. Individual's enrolled in the AOT program will have a treatment team to closely monitor treatment compliance, provide extended hours service delivery, utilize existing services such as the Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) Team and Intensive Day Treatment, provide diagnosis and medication education, teach appropriate daily living skills, and link them to appropriate community resources. The goals of the AOT program are to 1.) Reduce the incidence and duration of psychiatric hospitalizations. Individuals enrolled will meet regularly with their treatment team, who will monitor symptoms, and teach effective symptom management. 2.) Reduce the interactions with the criminal justice system and maintain treatment within the least restrictive environment. By encouraging and monitoring treatment compliance and providing psycho-education, individuals enrolled in AOT will be less likely to have encounters with law enforcement. 3.) Reduce the incidence of homelessness for individuals with a serious mental illness. Individuals, who are identified as homeless will be linked to supportive housing services. 4.) Improve access and compliance with healthcare. Individuals involved in AOT will meet with a benefits specialist to assist in obtaining healthcare benefits, and be linked to an affordable local healthcare provider. 5.) Improve social outcomes for all participants.

The JagConnect program at the University of South Alabama (USA) is designed to address the needs of the more than 15,000 students, faculty, and staff through a multi-level, public health approach to suicide prevention. The program aims to establish a sustainable infrastructure that results in increased access to mental health services for those at risk for suicide by promoting mental health treatment resources and increasing knowledge and awareness about suicide risk factors in students, faculty, and staff. The JagConnect program will implement a number of programs. A suicide prevention work group will be created to establish crisis protocols, cross-site clinical management strategies, and a monitoring system of suicide attempts and deaths by suicide. A social marketing campaign will be developed to create a culture of help-seeking and promote referrals of students at risk to mental health treatments. Educational seminars will be designed to increase knowledge, awareness, and self-efficacy for suicide prevention. Lastly, QPR gatekeeper trainings will help to increase the recognition and referrals of students in distress. Within these activities, three subpopulations of students will receive focused attention: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender individuals, veterans, and gun owners. Each activity will be rigorously monitored for effectiveness and will be modified as needed to suit our campus. By increasing awareness and access to mental health treatment resources on and off campus through multiple activities, our impacts will be broad enough to deter any future suicide attempts or deaths on our campus.

The AIDS Action Coalition (AAC) in Huntsville, Madision County, Alabama will provide comprehensive substance abuse/HIV prevention (SAP/HIVP) program with HIV and viral hepatitis (VH) awareness and screening services to racial/ethnic minority youth and young adults (13-24) using Peer Advocates in the 12-county Northern Alabama area.

The Alabama Partnership for Success Sustaining Outcomes Project (APFSSO) seeks to prevent and reduce underage drinking , young adult problem drinking, and the associated negative consequences. The project also aims to improve capacity and infrastructure in communities with health disparities, less access to care, and poorer behavioral health outcomes in person's aged 12 to 20, in eight high need counties that currently utilize the Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF).

The Alabama Strategic Prevention Framework Prescription: Only Yours As Prescribed (ASPFRx OYAP) project seeks to prevent and reduce prescription drug misuse and the negative consequences associated with it while improving capacity and infrastructure in communities with health disparities, less access to care, and poorer behavioral health outcomes in youth ages 12 to 17 and adults 18 years of age and older in the identified high need populations within the state.

The coalition will prevent and reduce youth substance use by implementing the following strategies:
increasing community collaboration by engaging current and new membership in the Drug-Free Community program to reduce substance use; reducing youth alcohol use and increasing perception of risk related to youth marijuana use by increasing awareness through education, implementing peer-led programs within the school systems, and enhancing skills of retailers by providing responsible vendor training.

The goals of the coalition are to establish and strengthen community collaboration in support of local efforts to prevent youth substance use. The coalition will achieve its goals by implementing these strategies: The Coalition will recruit new members and volunteers to be part of its prevention efforts and engage membership in our work and maintain communication channels with members. The Peer Helper program will be expanded into middle school schools. High school Peer Helps will be recruited for the upcoming school year. Training will be provided for staff and members to keep the Coalition up-to-date with skills and expertise needed to function as a group. The Coalition will increase its fiscal resources to prepare for sustainability and provide the community to strengthen awareness on facts surrounding marijuana. Skills of parents and youth will be enhanced to reduce marijuana use. Alternative activities will be provided to youth. The Coalition will enhance access to treatment by better enabling local resources to locate treatment availability. Public recognition of deserved behavior will be increased. The physical design of our communities will be changed to reduce risk and enhance protection. Policies will be modified to reduce the number driving under the influence of marijuana. Information will be provided to educate the community on the dangers of the misuse of prescription and over-the-counter medications. Skills of middle and high school students will be enhanced by equipping them with prescription pill abuse awareness facts and refusal skills. The community will be linked to treatment and recovery programs. Access to proper drug disposal locations and take-back programs will be provided. Local businesses, government agencies, and medical centers that participate in prescription pill prevention and intervention activities will be recognized.