OR Discretionary Funding Fiscal Year 2016

The Native Connection Project will build upon an array of integrated services that will reduce mental health and substance abuse disorders and ultimately prevent suicides amongst targeted youth up 24 years of age. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) scores are closely correlated with health and social disparities such as alcoholism, diabetes and unemployment.

The Native Connections Project will introduce resiliency skills to those at greatest risk and will build upon a foundation of successful suicide prevention programs and comprehensive health and mental healthcare of the Cow Creek Tribal Behavioral Health Program.

Located in Southern Oregon, the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians has experienced hundreds of years of intergenerational trauma. Trauma is a potential causative factor for long term distress, substance abuse and suicide amongst American Indian and Alaska Native communities. The Tribe's 7-county service area is one of the largest in the nation and is home to over 1,000 tribal members. Suicide rates within this service area is one of the largest in the State with an average of 20 suicides per month for all Oregonians living within the area.

The 2014 Oregon Student Wellness Survey (SWS) reported Cow Creek youth grades 6, 8 and 11 to be at an increased risk for ACEs versus other community youth with a 12.1% higher reporting of feeling sad or hopeless in the past 2 or more weeks and a 29.2% increase in actually attempting suicide.

The Native Connections Project's goals will be to reach an estimated 2,000 tribal member families and local community members within the 5-year project implementation period with the first 500 individuals being reached at the end of the Year 1 Kick-Off Event. The project will produce a cascade of trauma-informed awareness events, identification of youth and young adults primarily though the tribal clinics, resiliency skills taught at school, after school boys/girl club and tribal youth center and activities.

The purpose of Linn County Project AWARE is to support the training of teachers, other school staff, and a wide range of community partners and other adults in Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA). The goal of Linn County Project AWARE is to Increase the Mental Health Literacy of youth-serving adults in Linn County. The following objectives provide the necessary framework to reach the goal: increase the capacity to train youth-serving adults in YMHFA; increase the number of adults trained in YMHFA; increase the capacity of adults to respond to adolescent behavioral health issues; develop and implement a mental health literacy campaign in all 7 Linn County school districts; increase adolescent referrals to behavioral health resources by first aiders; and develop and increase collaborative partnerships with youth-serving agencies and programs to benefit youth with mental health needs in Linn County. Linn County Project AWARE will train a minimum of 400 adults in YMHFA in year 1, 475 in Year 2, and 475 in Year 3. The Project will reach out across the community to insure participants reflect the diversity of the community, including providing Spanish Language YMHFA trainings.

Peerlink National Technical Assistance Center (Peerlink NTAC), a program of Mental Health America of Oregon (MHAO), will further develop and expand our provision of technical assistance to mental health peers and peer groups, behavioral health organizations, government entities, and the general public. Peerlink NTAC's targeted technical assistance will increase peer participation in mental health system design, evaluation, and implementation; expand peer roles throughout integrated health systems; and expand the capacity and sustainability of peer-run programs and organizations. Through the effective provision of technical assistance and knowledge sharing, Peerlink NTAC will meet these Project Goals: 1. Introduce concepts of recovery and peer support in communities where these concepts are new or not generally known; specifically engaging communities that have not historically been engaged or engagement has been challenging (i.e. rural and isolated communities, veterans, youth/young adult, Native American communities); 2. Increase individual and collective voice of peers in communities across our assigned regions; 3. Increase the capacity and continued success of peer organizations by providing technical assistance specific to business and organizational development; 4. Increase the capacity of peers to provide employment supports and financial self-sufficiency courses to peers in their communities; 5. Increase the availability, quality and quantity of peer support training within the regions served; 6. Increase engagement with veteran organizations. Peerlink NTAC will reach a minimum of 3,000 persons over the first year with over 15,000 individuals impacted over the 5 year grant cycle, through a combination of choreographed strategies including: webinars, in-person training and technical assistance (TA), newsletters, websites, fact sheets, videos, radio shows, creative use of social media and new peer support services.

Mental Health America of Oregon (MHAO), a peer-run nonprofit, proposes to form the Oregon Peer Delivered Services Coalition (OPDSC). The program goals are to (1) enhance consumer participation, voice, leadership, and empowerment statewide to effect systems change and improve the quality of mental health services; (2) enhance knowledge, skills, and abilities within mental health service and/or peer support providers related to recovery and trauma-informed approaches; and (3) emphasize and build consumer leadership within the organizations and in the community, as well as through partnerships and collaboration with allied stakeholders. This project will promote activities related to the following: peer support values and standards, trauma-informed peer support, health equity, and inclusion. The proposed activities include training, leadership, and skills development; trauma-informed and gender responsive peer support and peer certification standards; diversity and cultural responsiveness; partnership development, and integrated care and wellness. Through partnership with Oregon's Coordinated Care Organizations, the Oregon Health Authority and other healthcare entities, the Coalition will aim to assume the role of the certifying body for peer specialists in the state and achieve independent sustainability.

The Multnomah Behavioral Health Treatment Court (MBHTC) initiative is a dynamic evidence-based and systems-wide community effort to target disadvantaged individuals who struggle with severe behavioral health disorders and involvement in the criminal justice system. This service enhancement will increase the capacity and quality of diversion options for adults in Multnomah County who have historically fallen through the cracks of support networks, to ensure those in need get the high-quality, individualized treatment and services necessary for them to achieve recovery and overall quality of life. The MBHTC initiative will serve 230 adults with severe mental illness, substance use, and co-occurring disorders over the four year project period, emphasizing the involvement of veterans and minority sub-populations with health disparities.

Key interventions and strategies of the suicide prevention program are: (1) a coordinated System of Care consisting of outreach, prevention activities, clinical treatment and recovery services/supports; (2) a Statewide Youth Suicide Prevention Training Institute; (3) a full-time Outreach Specialist with ties to hospital emergency departments, Lines for Life suicide prevention helpline, and social media; (4) Project Venture evidence-based outdoor camps; (5) Oregon's Tribal Best Practices; (6) incorporation of "connectedness" in all activities; (7) alignment with Oregon's Suicide Prevention Plan and the Suicide Prevention Plan for the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board; and (8) partnerships with eight Oregon Tribes, higher education, Coordinated Care Organizations, hospital emergency departments, Title VII Indian Education, Native American Youth and Family Center, Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board, and the Chemawa Indian School.
This Project is adopting the Zero Suicide approach to reduce rates of suicidal ideation, suicide attempts and suicide deaths and incorporating Goals 8 and 9 of the NSSP into its system transformation, which includes linkages with health, mental health, addictions and recovery for at-risk Native youth and their families.

Goal 1: Improve tribal suicide prevention policies and environments through coordination, collaboration, and resource sharing across tribes, departments, and programs.
Goal 2: Enhance organizational systems and practices in IHS, Tribal, and Urban (I/T/U) clinics to provide suicide treatment and prevention services to 300 AI/AN youth each year.
Goal 3: Develop and disseminate three culturally-appropriate social marketing campaigns (targeting AI/AN youth, LGBT youth, and young veterans) to promote healthy social norms surrounding the use of mental health services and use of the national Lifeline.
Goal 4: Improve knowledge, attitudes and behaviors among 140 AI/AN youth in the Pacific Northwest using culturally-appropriate, evidence-based suicide prevention interventions (EBIs). Each year, the THRIVE project will issue 3 subcontracts with NW tribes and one subcontract with an Institution of Higher Education (Heritage University) to implement an EBIs targeting AI/AN youth in their communities.

The Oregon Family Support Network (SFSN) will focus on families in rural Oregon and within special populations, including Latino, Native American, and families with youth transitioning to independent living.
The catchment area will be the State of Oregon, with specific outreach to communities that have historically been underserved by our organization. Families identified for this project live in rural and urban/suburban communities. Statewide, OFSN will increase its capacity to provide information and referral and resource information through its 1-800 line. Additionally, the OFSN will provide training, support, and leadership development to diverse populations of families, including the Latino community in Marion County, families in rural Eastern Oregon, including the YellowHawk System of Care site, and military families living in Lane County.
OFSN four core strategies will be:
1) Expand current outreach to diverse communities, including, Native Americans, Latinos, Rural, and Veteran populations.
2) Train for leadership in service planning and policy making at the local, county, and state levels for family members.
3) Enhance and expand information and referral capacity and provide short term support for parents and caregivers raising a child/children with serious emotional disturbance.
4) Collaborate with Statewide youth and peer networks representing youth and adult mental health consumers to provide outreach, support, and education to families raising a young adult transitioning into adulthood.

Oregon will build upon existing and emerging health system infrastructures that have been central to the state's transformation progress to date to strengthen physical and behavioral health care delivery in behavioral health settings. The populations of focus are children and youth with serious emotional disturbances, adults with serious mental illness, individuals with long-term and serious substance use disorders and those with mental illness and substance use disorders. Oregon plans to certify clinics based on readiness and compliance with CCBHC certification criteria, geographic location, and population served. Based on ranking, clinics will be inspected to ensure that they meet the criteria and to provide technical assistance. Oregon plans to use the PPS-1 daily rate methodology and to require all CCBHCs to provide Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Motivational Interviewing, and Co-occurring Disorder Treatment as well as evidence-based peer support services.

Oregon Public Health Division's (PHD) Caring Connections Youth Suicide Prevention Initiative capitalizes on a long history of successful public/private collaboration and Oregon's dynamic health care delivery system to reduce the burden of suicide among youth ages 10-24 by implementing comprehensive suicide prevention and early identification best practices. The Initiative targets 468,809 youth aged 10-24, with special focus on at-risk youth, which includes those that live in seven Oregon counties with a higher than national rate of youth suicide, military families, youth involved in the foster care and juvenile justice systems, Native American youth, Latino youth, and sexual minority youth. PHD's multifaceted approach for comprehensive suicide prevention and early identification includes implementation of evidence-based and best practice strategies at both the state level, and intensely at the community level. Oregon's proposal mobilizes 28 key partners, including the community mental health programs, public health, hospitals and health centers, schools, addictions and mental health clinicians, universities, juvenile justice, veteran's organizations, Tribes, and the Coordinated Care Organizations in seven counties in the Willamette Valley, Southern Oregon, Central Oregon, Northeastern Oregon, and the Portland area.