MI Discretionary Funding Fiscal Year 2023

Arbor Circle’s Mental Health Awareness and Training Project will educate community members living/working in Ottawa County, Michigan who interact with person(s) who may experience a mental health crisis/disorder. Groups targeted for this training will be law enforcement, first responders, educators, teen leaders and business leaders and managers. Arbor Circle will provide a continuum of Evidence-Based Mental Health Awareness Trainings and bolster referrals to the mental health treatment system. Our target is to support and ensure access for the almost 10% of Ottawa County residents who experience poor or extremely poor mental health. The percentage of our adult population experiencing poor mental health is demographically representative of our community as a whole. However, our youth of color are experiencing mental illness at a significantly higher rate than our Caucasian students. Special attention will be made to better engage and support our youth of color in Ottawa County. Our two goals are to increase the percent of adults in Ottawa County who access treatment for their mental illness by 10% and to reduce the percent of youth who indicate they have attempted suicide in the past year 5% by 2026. The objectives to reach these goals are to increase adults who view others as “caring and sympathetic to people with mental illness”, increase adults reporting resilience factors, increase training for adults and youth on mental illness in Ottawa County, and to expand and enhance the connections between organizations to ensure more effective referrals for persons with SEI/SED. To achieve these goals and objective Arbor Circle and our partners will train 570 unique individuals in project year 1, 850 in project year 2, 1,275 in project year 3, 1,280 in project year 4, and 1,390 in project year 5. The total number of individuals trained throughout the project term will be 5,365. Arbor Circle will partner with local coalitions like Building Resilient Youth and the Ottawa County Suicide Prevention Coalition and organizations like Community Mental Health of Ottawa County (CMHOC) and the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office (OCSO) to provide a continuum of Evidence-Based Mental Health Awareness Trainings. The continuum of training will include Crisis Intervention Team Training, Question, Persuade, Refer and Mental Health First Aid. Arbor Circle will also build on the work of CMHOC and OCSO to assess and create enhancements in our referral system where needed. We will review the sustainability of a designated follow up agency who can contact community members after a mental health crisis where first responders were called. As this project calls for collective implementation of training, all partners will contribute to a collective reporting tool to create a comprehensive evaluation of the projects impact annually and throughout the 5 years of the project.

Black Family Development Inc. (BFDI) is proposing to expand Detroit Public School Community District’s (DPSCD’s) well established mental health services and support to improve the networks response to risk factors associated with suicide to include addressing social determinates of health, reducing public stigma related to receiving mental health services and enhancing protective factors to mitigate the risk of suicide including the impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences through Detroit AWARE. On average, 10,000 students in 27 schools within DPSCD will have access to Detroit AWARE each funded year. Two (2) of the highest racial/ethnic student populations within DPSCD are Black/African American (82%) and Hispanic/Latinx (13.6%). Seventy-eight percent of students are eligible for free and/or reduced lunch wherein the city of Detroit has a 33.2% poverty rate. From a recent survey of students, it was determined that approximately 18% of the student body identifies as LGBTQIA. In a recent survey, 14% of DPSCD students responded as having experienced homelessness during the past year and 24% of students do not feel safe traveling to school. In addition, people of color are more likely to experience health and mental health difficulties and have a heightened risk of suicide. BFDI’s mission is to strengthen and enhance the lives of children, youth, and families through partnerships that support safe, nurturing, vibrant homes, schools, and communities. Aligning with BFDI’s mission, the following goals of Detroit AWARE will be achieved through a collaborative partnership with DPSCD, Michigan Department of Education, and Michigan Department of Human Services: Goal 1: Increase awareness of suicide prevention and behavioral health concerns amongst school-aged youth to reduce stigma and normalize seeking out support. Goal 2: Decrease suicidal ideations and self-harmful behaviors amongst school-aged youth with strength-based prevention and behavioral health treatment service supports. Goal 3: Increase mental health literacy with behavioral health education training and support to individuals who interact with school-aged youth. Goal 4: Increase culturally relevant behavioral health services and support that are provided to school-aged youth and families through diverse partnerships that foster wellness. Based upon each school-aged youth’s individual needs, BFDI uses the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and Patient Health Question (PHQ-9) to determine the right pathway/level of care for school-aged youth. The three-tiered public health model for Detroit AWARE will be executed using eight (8) distinct interventions to include Screening, Prevention (including Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools), Treatment, Parent Workshop, Crisis Intervention, Referrals, Coordination of Care and Professional Development, including providing educators with Question, Persuade Refer (QPR Evidence-based suicide prevention training). BFDI’s mission emphasizes the importance of partnerships to elevate families to achieve strong outcomes. These relationships are to include community groups, peer support services, behavioral health support, and local businesses.

The project will improve the identification, treatment, and supports for students at risk of suicide and suicide attempts; and strengthen protective factors that promote mental health, minimize suicide risk factors, and reduce suicides and attempts. The aims for the project will: (1) Enhance mental health services for all college students, including those at risk for suicide, depression, serious mental illness (SMI) /serious emotional disturbances (SED), and substance use disorders that can lead to school failure. CMU will have strengthened cross-collaboration and alignment of existing campus resources, mental health services and telehealth infrastructure to ensure a comprehensive continuum of services and resources to increase capacity and provide timely access for students to assessment, treatment, and referral care transitions; (2) Prevent and reduce suicide, mental and substance use disorders by implementing evidence-based, multi-tiered education and training across the University and surrounding community that expands mental health first aid and suicide awareness for all students, faculty, and staff. (3) Promote help-seeking, reduce stigma, and increase awareness/support for improved access to resources. Beginning immediately and by the end of year one of the project, CMU will carry out suicide prevention awareness training for faculty, staff, and students to increase the capacity and skills of gatekeeper lay-helpers as well as clinical services staff to identify, respond and make appropriate referrals for students in distress. By the end of year one, CMU will improve services and processes for the identification and treatment of at-risk college students so they can successfully complete their studies. Additionally, it will be a key priority to immediately collaborate with CMU Human Resources Wellness and Benefits, Diversity Equity Inclusion Center for Student Inclusion and Diversity, Student Affairs CMU CAREs, Campus Police, and community-based resource providers to implement activities and resources aimed at promoting a supportive campus, address interpersonal violence, and COVID-related mental health stressors that impede student success. The project will target college students (ages 17 to 26); serving 15,465 students enrolled in undergraduate, graduate, or doctoral programs. Central Michigan University’s (CMU) main campus is located in Isabella County, a rural and medically underserved community. Isabella County comprises Mount Pleasant, MI in Mid-Michigan, also known as Central Michigan. The county contains the Isabella Indian Reservation, which has a total area of 217.67 square miles (563.8 km2). It is the major land base of the federally recognized Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Nation. The full-time enrollment at CMU is 11,441undergraduate students and 4,024 graduate students. On CMU’s main campus the increased need for mental health services and saturation of community mental provider networks has resulted in 3-4 month wait times for specialty service referrals for students. CMU has counseling services, psychiatry services, and a student health clinic that provides resources to students that address suicide prevention, mental health, substance use, and behavioral health. The mental health provider to patient ratio is 410:1 for Isabella County (MyMichigan Health, 2022). Despite CMU's continuing expansion of provider capacity, we continue to conduct 2,720 behavior health visits, an increase of over 1,000 visits in the last four years, and we continue to have unmet needs for our students.

As a leading, comprehensive provider of behavioral and mental health services within Michigan, Detroit Recovery Project (DRP) is seeking a Mental Health Awareness Training (MHAT) grant, entitled Mental Health IQ, to address the knowledge gap around the signs and symptoms of mental illness, including serious mental illness (SMI) and serious emotional disturbances (SED). The training will focus on crisis intervention, and how to safely de-escalate a crisis situation, as well as increase mental health awareness among individuals who interact and come into contact with persons who may be experiencing symptoms of a mental disorder. The training will be designed using evidence-based practice, Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA), and Crisis Intervention Training (CIT). The proposed target population will be transitional aged youth (TAY), ages 16-25, behavioral health professionals, law enforcement, various workforce populations, and families/caregivers in the Detroit, Highland Park, Hamtramck catchment area within Wayne County (WC), Michigan. DRP will partner with the Wayne County Sheriff's Department, UAW-Ford, and Michigan's first recovery high school, Wellspring International, to launch this initiative. If funded, the overall goal of Mental Health IQ is to increase the number of behavioral health, law enforcement, business professionals, youth, and school personnel being trained in the Detroit catchment area, to recognize the signs and symptoms of mental disorders, including, SMI and SED, up to 100 individuals annually, totaling 500 individuals over the course of the five-year grant. The following objectives will be achieved to ensure the overall goal is accomplished. Objective 1: Train 65% of DRP staff to recognize the signs and symptoms of mental disorders, using the evidence-based MHFA, YMHFA, and CIT. Objective 2: Train 35% of Wayne County Sheriff officials on the evidence-based MHFA, YMHFA, and CIT Curriculum. Objective 3: Train 35% of Local Ford UAW employees on the evidence-based MHFA, YMHFA, and CIT curriculum. Objective 4: Train 35% of teachers and relevant school personnel on the evidence-based MHFA, YMHFA, and CIT curriculum.