IL Discretionary Funding Fiscal Year 2014

Children's Research Triangle's Trauma Treatment Program (TTP) will increase the availability of trauma-focused therapeutic services for children and adolescents ages 0 to 18 years by implementing evidenced-based interventions and by training professionals and non-professionals about the impact of trauma on youth. The TTP will employ several best practice interventions, including Child-Parent Psychotherapy, Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Structured Psychotherapy for Adolescents Responding to Chronic Stress, and Families Over-Coming Under Stress. During each of the four years of funding, 400 children and adolescents will be screened for traumatic histories; 225 will undergo a systematic trauma assessment; 60 will participate in TTP trauma-focused interventions; 60 will participate in Youth Trauma Workshops; and 100 professionals and 50 non-professionals will receive training about the impact of trauma.

The DuPage County Health Department (DCHD) and VNA Health Care seek to provide integrated primary and behavioral health services to adults with serious mental illnesses (SMI) who have or are at risk for co-occurring primary care conditions and chronic diseases. Diabetes, cholesterol and hypertension are the top three co-morbid medical conditions experienced by this target population. DCHD proposes to partner with VNA, a primary care provider, to deliver coordinated and integrated services to 850 adults with serious mental illnesses over the course of a four year project period. DCHD and VNA will implement a behavioral health home pilot project, MYCare, to address the health disparities experienced by clients, using the co-located partnership model to provide integrated services. The goal of MYCare is to improve the overall health of adults with SMI by using a person centered care strategy that addresses their multiple and complex needs, including physical co-morbid conditions. The key objectives are to: 1. Improve the physical health status of SMI adults who have or are at risk for co-occurring primary care illnesses and chronic diseases by providing comprehensive primary care services including dental care 2. Treat identified mental illnesses and/ or co-occurring disorders by providing specialized mental health services 3. Promote self-management of physical and mental health conditions and long-term recovery by providing evidence-based wellness services and connecting clients to community care supports DCHD and VNA anticipate serving 400 individuals in year 1, 550 in year 2, 700 in year 3 and 850 in year 4.

The DuPage County Health Department (DCHD) will expand and enhance the agency's Crisis Intervention Unit follow-up services for National Suicide Lifeline callers and suicidal individuals treated by other crisis intervention services as part of its continuing efforts to improve behavioral health care in DuPage County. The overall goal of the DCHD Crisis Center Follow-up Project is to enhance and expand suicide prevention services in DuPage County by increasing the number of suicidal persons receiving follow-up services. The specific supporting objectives are: 1) To increase the number of DCHD Crisis Intervention Unit Lifeline callers enrolled in follow-up services and link them with treatment services as appropriate. 2) To coordinate with other crisis intervention services in order to engage and provide continuity of care and follow-up services. 3) To increase awareness of, access to and participation in suicide prevention and treatment services in DuPage County with a special focus on underserved groups. 4) To train professional behavioral health and crisis intervention staff in evidence-based and best practices in suicide prevention strategies. DCHD will implement a combination of evidence-informed best practices, expert and consensus statements on suicide prevention practices, and Evidence-Based Practices (EBPs) identified in the Suicide Prevention Resource Center's Best Practices Registry. DCHD's Crisis Intervention Unit follows the National Lifeline Risk Assessment Standards as well as the Lifeline's Guidelines for Responding to Callers at Imminent Risk, both evidence-informed practices that experts have consensus on.

To support mental health and suicide prevention awareness among professionals across the County, DCHD has plans to invest in Mental Health First Aid training for several of its staff members. DCHD anticipates providing follow-up services to more than 300 individuals annually for a total of more than 900 individuals over the project period.

The Illinois Department of Human Services/Division of Mental Health in collaboration with the youth, family, and child serving agencies in White, Saline, and Gallatin Counties will develop the proposed project. Project Connect is a proposed System of Care for youth with serious emotional disturbances and their families. Project Connect's mission is to provide a seamless System of Care for the three rural, southeastern Illinois counties that is family-driven, youth-guided, strengths-based, sustainable, culturally and linguistically competent. The three counties have high poverty rates, low levels of adult education, high levels of disability, and high Medicaid enrollment. Project Connect will serve all children, birth to age 21, in these counties, but will also target three groups that are particularly in need of additional support: (1) Youth transitioning to adulthood (age 16-21), (2) youth receiving special education services, and (3) youth undergoing major developmental transitions (into grade school, into middle school, and into high school). Project Connect will expand access to and speed entry into services by implementing universal screening of youth through the schools at three points in their K- 12 education; Project Connect will expand services by hiring Family Resource Developers and Care Managers to work in concert with school-based social workers and mental health service providers in the community; Project Connect will deepen services by offering evidence-based practices to support youth and family development (such as Wraparound services, parent skills training, and services focused on transitioning to adulthood).

The ACCESS Initiative, in full partnership with local youth, families, and community members, will facilitate the development of a sustainable system of care in Champaign County, Illinois, that effectively addresses the multiple needs of youth with severe emotional disturbances at risk for, and involved in, the juvenile justice system, with particular attention to reducing the over-representation of African American youth in the juvenile and child welfare systems.
The Initiative's goals include: a) expanding the community and system capacity to address the needs of youth in effective, culturally competent, and sustainable ways; b) transforming the county's mental health and social service infrastructure to be seamless and follow the child; and c) becoming a replicable model and catalyst for SOC expansion and stigma-reduction, regionally and statewide.
The application targets youth 10-17 with SED, multiple system involvement, and involvement in the juvenile justice system, with African American youth, who are over-represented in child- serving systems, being a priority population.

The Illinois Youth Suicide Prevention Project (1YSPP) supports the advancement of the Illinois Suicide Prevention Strategic Plan by building o the momentum of activities already occurring, improving cross-systems linkages to services and enhancing relationships to build networks of caring communities. The purposes of IYSPP are to: 1) enhance primary suicide prevention, 2) support local entities I the implementation of evidence based prevention, 3) increase linkage to prevention and treatment services for youth ages 10 to 24, 4) decrease risk factors for high school students, 5) increase protective factors for high school students, and 6) increase the degree of statewide support and among specific stakeholder groups for sustained suicide prevention activities. The statewide activities of the IYSPP are designed to increase the capacity to make system-wide changes. First, a consensus process will be designed with the many systems that serve adolescents and youth. This cross-systems series of meetings will: Share what is known about the scope of youth suicide in Illinois, identify strengths and gaps of current policies and practices, solicit and integrate recommendations for system improvements, and create linkages to strengthen the continuum of care. Second, a higher education systems strategy process will be initiated to help college and university campuses build on the initiatives made by the Campus Security Task Force. This task force was organized after a shooting involving suicide, ended the lives of multiple people at Northern Illinois University in 2008.

County of Lake's Trauma Informed Care for Youth (TICY) Project's goal is to use Trauma Focused-Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to treat and serve children/adolescents and their families who witness or experience traumatic events. The pogram will develop expertise in trauma care and become a leader in enhancing trauma informed care in the community by providing training on the symptoms, impact and treatment of trauma. The program will serve 1,000 clients, ages 2 to 18 and their families in direct clinical services. It is estimated that 53% All clients served will have experienced or witnessed trauma. Priority will be given to military families.

The Lake-McHenry Veteran's and Family Strategic Initiative (LM-VFTIS) will serve veterans 18 years and older and their families with signs of or are at risk of mental illness. Through a transformed consumer-guided system, rigorous outreach, screening, early intervention, provider training in trauma-informed care delivery, and promotion of recovery principles, program will reduce hospitalizations, and homelessness, and increase delivery of trauma-informed care. Grantee will (1) reduce psychiatric hospitalizations through mental health and substance abuse screening and outreach; (2) reduce homelessness through peer-to-peer support and CTI; (3) increase trauma screening and support services through the use of SBIRT, PTSD, and Depression screening and WRAP planning; and (4) increase workforce development training on Trauma-Informed Care.

The Center for Child Trauma Assessment and Service Planning (CCTASP) at Northwestern University Medical School will specialize in comprehensive, trauma-focused assessment; training and consultation; and development, implementation, and evaluation of interventions focused on the developmental effects of trauma. The purpose of CCTASP is to build an infrastructure to (a) more effectively assess the developmental effects of trauma across child-serving systems, (b) develop intervention resources to address identified needs in practice, and (c) enhance widespread dissemination and application of effective interventions. Interventions will be geared towards children, adolescents, caregivers, and providers across a range of child serving settings with a particular focus on child welfare, residential, and juvenile justice. This Center will emphasize the dissemination and application of the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS)-Trauma, as a trauma-focused and strengths-based comprehensive assessment, treatment and systems planning tool. The CCTASP will focus on enhancing education and skill-building on the range of developmental effects, translating and applying assessment information in a meaningful way for providers and consumers, and integrating assessment and treatment/services interventions more effectively in practice. The goals of CCTASP are to: 1) Enhance education on the developmental effects of trauma across child serving settings; 2) Expand dissemination and increase accessibility of comprehensive trauma-focused assessments on the developmental effects of trauma across settings; 3) Enhance translation of trauma-focused assessments in practice; and 4) Integrate and disseminate trauma-focused assessments and service/treatment interventions on the developmental effects of trauma.

One Hope United-Northern Region (OHU-NR) proposes to integrate education, assessment, and treatment of trauma in children into the mental health, substance abuse, schools, and juvenile justice system of Lake County through our program, titled The Healing Path: A Trauma Treatment Program for Youth. An evidence based approach ¿ Attachment, Regulation, and Competency (ARC) ¿ will be used to treat traumatic stress symptoms in an underserved population in Lake County, IL. OHU-NR proposed to serve 50 youth per year with traumatic stress symptoms in ARC therapy with 20% of the clients being from a military family. It is estimated that this project will treat 130 youth through the course of the grant
(four years).