DC Discretionary Funding Fiscal Year 2014

The YVP-RC is to serve as a national resource and training center to increase the effectiveness of youth violence prevention, prevention of mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders, and promotion of the healthy development of children and youth, 0-21, especially vulnerable populations. SS/HS and Project LAUNCH grant programs technical assistance (TA) recipients will include a wide and diverse set of stakeholders with differing demographics and characteristics. The YVP-RC will develop strategies/interventions, tools, and resources to disseminate that will help grantees assess their needs, identify risk and protective factors, develop and test prevention strategies, and sustain and scale-up at the end of the project-all housed in an online "TTA Gateway." TA to the broader field will involve creating a set of integration tools and resources that align with SAMHSA's Framework Tool that can also be customized to the individual needs of a state, tribe, territory, or community. The Resource Center will carry out the following objectives: (1) increase the use of the public health approach for mental health and violence prevention; (2) increase the use of cultural and linguistic competent services and programs; (3) improve the selection and implementation of evidence-based interventions (grounded in the methods of implementation science) that can address local needs and can be supported; (4) improve the quality, delivery, and financing of behavioral health services using opportunities in the Affordable Care Act; (5) increase sustainable partnerships through better stakeholder engagement and more effective system integration;(6) increase quality and access and reduce disparities among racial and ethnic populations, and LGBTQ audiences; (7) improve capacity to sustain and scale up local and state efforts using public health strategies consistent with the 2009 IOM Report.

The proposed Cooperative Agreement builds on the District's October, 2011 SAMHSA System of Care Expansion Planning Grant, which has supported a robust Strategic Planning process and is directly responsive to SAMHSA's priority of bringing SOC to scale at the state level. This Cooperative Agreement will create a sustainable infrastructure which delivers, District-wide, a comprehensive array of mental health, health, recovery supports, case management and outreach services in a manner that reflects SAMHSA's core values and guiding principles for systems of care. The population of focus is children/youth with serious emotional disturbances (SED) served by the public system, including mental health, child welfare, education, health, and juvenile justice in the District of Columbia.

The Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development (GUCCHD) is to serve as the National Technical Assistance Center for Children's Mental Health (TA Center). The Center will increase the capacity of communities, states, tribes, and territories to improve, sustain, and expand systems of care (SOCs) and the services and supports provided within them to improve the lives of children with mental health challenges and their families.Technical Assistance strategies will address five overarching goals to increase capacity: 1) improve, sustain, and expand SOCs, services, and supports by enhancing strategic planning and policy development, financing, workforce and leadership development, and performance measurement; 2) implement the core SOC values of family-driven and youth-guided care, cultural and linguistic competence, and the elimination of disparities; 3) improve the effectiveness of services and supports/practice within SOCs; 4) provide services and supports across the developmental spectrum; and 5) provide services and supports to youth involved with other child-serving systems and their families.

The Washington, DC Recovery Network will deliver 100% Consumer Operated recovery-focused and resiliency-oriented healthcare. Our project will educate Peers through wellness activities, mutual peer support, and workforce development. We work with DC providers and employers to strengthen our health, live self-directed lives, and reach our full potential. DC Recovery Network is a program of Ida Mae Campbell Wellness & Resource Center. The staff is African American, White, trilingual English, Spanish, and American Sign Language (ASL), male, female, and transgender/queer. DC Recovery Network will: (1) conduct monthly WRAP activities, co-facilitating one WRAP class with a new WRAP facilitator, supporting fidelity to WRAP and offering an evidence-based practice support system; (2) collaborate with our Department of Mental Health when they present one Washington, D.C. Peer Specialist training and credentialing, and assist with their job placement; (3) deliver quarterly workforce development training, designed to our peers' specifications. Outreach and newsletter efforts will connect with 250 people a year and will reach over 500 in the three year period so that mental health recovery and resilience flourish more than ever. We will collaborate with 20-30 people a month sharing recovery services and training and 10-15 people per month with workforce self-development. Annually, over 100 people and over 200 unique individuals throughout the three-year project will connect with DC Recovery Network to mutually strengthen ourselves and give our full potential in our diverse communities.

This project will empower youth with serious emotional distubances and their families. The Total Family Care Coalition (TFCC) is a family run organization, and the leading provider of family advocacy and support to parents of children and youth with serious emotional disturbances for the District of Columbia. This proposal will allow TFCC to build vital infrastructure supportive of family and youth participation District-wide at the individual care, service planning and system change levels at a time when the District is re-configuring critical services and re-bidding managed care contracts.

The proposed Suicide Prevention Project addresses SAMHSA's Prevention of Substance Abuse and Mental Illness Strategic Initiative. Authorized under the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act, this Campus Suicide Prevention Grant is designed to support a broad-range of activities and partner with other campus entities including behavior health grants that promote overall wellbeing. The University of the District of Columbia (UDC) plans to utilize the Kognito At-Risk platform to focus on trainings that address stigma, lack of mental health awareness and education, false cultural beliefs, distrust of professionals, shame, and spiritual concerns, potential barriers to seeking mental health treatment. UDC has two overarching goals for this Suicide Prevention Project, to: 1) Provide Suicide Prevention training to the university community and; 2) Improve campus suicide prevention awareness by increasing the numbers of students, faculty, and staff exposed to mental health promotion and suicide prevention resources. Through a series of internal and external partnerships, this project will emphasize the use of Kognito At-Risk trainings which include 1) building skills and motivation to identify, approach, and refer students exhibiting signs of suicidal ideation, substance use/abuse, and psychological distress, including depression and anxiety, to relevant support services on- and off-campus, 2) reducing stigma about mental disorders, and increasing the recognition that suicide prevention is everyone's responsibility, 3) increasing help-seeking behaviors among students and reducing negative attitudes for seeking care for mental and substance use disorders among students, and 4) building knowledge about on- and off-campus behavioral health services including the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

The coalition will prevent and reduce youth substance use by implementing the following strategies:(1) Increase youth-adult partnerships to prevent underage drinking thru a social marketing media campaign; (2) Increase youth exposure to civic and other positive activities; (3) Increase public recognition of retailers that comply with the ban on the sale of drug paraphernalia, the sale of single cheap cigars, and the sale of alcohol and tobacco products to minors; and (4) Increase monitoring and enforcement of the ban on the sale of drug paraphernalia, the sale of single cheap cigars, and the sale of alcohol and tobacco products to minors.

The coalition will prevent and reduce youth substance use by implementing the following strategies: establish and strengthen collaboration among the Ward 1 Drug Free Coalition partner organizations in support of the community's effort to prevent and reduce substance use among youth; and (2) reduce substance use among youth in Ward 1, and, over time, reduce substance abuse among adults by addressing the community issues that increase the risk of substance abuse and promoting the factors that minimize the risk of substance abuse.

Howard University goals are to prevent and reduce substance abuse and transmission of HIV/AIDS among minority young adults. The new Strategic Prevention Framework State Incentive Grant (SPF-SIG) will produce a strategic plan and infrastructure through a formal process to build a sustainable system for substance abuse prevention to the university, and surrounding communities.

MTA's REALtalkDC Project will develop content with a focus on LGBTQ youth and Latino youth ages 13-24 living in Wards 5-8. On this site, young people will have the opportunity to participate in a wide range of education campaigns: participate in discussion forums via live feeds; connect to local testing sites; speak to a trained HIV/STI peer educator via chat; participate in PSA and video contests; learn about community events; read and post blog content; follow MTA via Instagram and Twitter; and connect to programs and services provided both at MTA and throughout the community.