WA Discretionary Funding Fiscal Year 2023

Through the proposed project, EWU Suicide Prevention Program, Counseling and Wellness Services at Eastern Washington University (EWU) in Cheney, WA will expand and enhance suicide prevention training and skill building programming. The target population for the program is all members of the community, with intentional focus on students identify as LGBTQ+, first generation in their family to attend college, and student athletes. Best practice training will be provided to students, staff, faculty, and parents. Resiliency, stigma reduction and skill building training and outreach will also be conducted with students through Peer Health Educators. EWU will develop a suicide prevention plan and crisis response protocols to build a stronger a safety net for students. The Leadership Team and stakeholders across campus will collaborate to create a comprehensive, coordinated, and sustainable plan for addressing mental health promotion and suicide prevention on campus. The goals and objectives identified for the three year grant period include: (1) Increase the number of suicide prevention and mental health promotion trainings delivered to students, faculty, staff, and parents at Eastern Washington University. (1.1) By February 28, 2023, ten staff members across campus will become QPR certified trainers. (1.2) By July 1, 2023, ten staff members will have become Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) certified trainers. (1.3) By December 1, 2022, 3 Peer Health Educators will be trained to provide the How to Help a Friend Training and topics that address resiliency and building life skills. (1.4) By September 29, 2025, 1700 students, faculty, staff and parents will be trained in the selected evidence-based suicide prevention programs. (1.5) By August 15, 2025, 300 staff and faculty will learn new skills to support students through the annual Student Affairs Symposium. (1.6) By June 1, 2025, 1500 students will attend seminars delivered by the peer health educators to improve resiliency, enhance life skills and promote social connectedness. (2) Build comprehensive and sustainable campus and community partnerships that support mental health and reduce suicide. (2.1) By March 1, 2023, and annually each year after, conduct an audit of the Leadership team to assure representation of diverse campus stakeholders. (2.2) By August 30, 2025, create a network infrastructure that links EWU with crisis and behavioral health agencies in the community. (2.3) By September 1, 2024, identify the benefits and risks of signing MOUs with community crisis behavioral health responders. (2.4) By June 15, 2025, create and disseminate a suicide prevention plan and crisis response protocol for EWU. (2.5) By June 1, 2024, implement an assessment of lethal means on campus and create a plan to address identified risks. (3) Increase campus messaging that supports mental health, promotes resources on campus and in the community, clearly communicates crisis response protocols and reduces stigma. (3.1) By June 1, 2025, implement campus-wide messaging that reaches the entire community to reduce stigma, promote behavioral health and crisis resources, online screenings, and support mental health.

If funded by the SAMSHA MHAT Grant, Educational Service District (ESD) 123 intends to utilize the funds to train both Spanish-speaking and English-speaking community members, families, 10th grade students, school staff, and other related workforce on Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) and Teen Mental Health First Aid (tMHFA), which are designed to teach individuals how to identify, understand, and respond to signs and symptoms of mental health issues in adolescents (12-18), our population of focus. The goals of this project are to increase access to services for youth experiencing mental health problems, decrease negative outcomes such as suicide, and increase mental health awareness in our community. ESD 123 will utilize the grant funds to train approximately 8,545 individuals in our community. ESD 123 serves 23 school districts in 7 counties of Southeastern Washington. Through dedicated Behavioral Health services, ESD 123 plays a critical role in navigating complex systems and access to care for youth. The project will be implemented in Benton and Franklin counties which have a combined population of approximately 290,000 people. In Benton and Franklin counties, there is a significant Hispanic/Latino population that has more than doubled over the past two decades, increasing from 40,838 (21% of total population) in 2000, to 91,783 (32% of total population) in 2017. The region has a substantial Spanish-speaking population. In Pasco, for example, the majority (54%) of the population over 5 years of age spoke a language other than English in the home, predominantly Spanish. Given the growing Hispanic/Latino population in Benton and Franklin counties, there is substantial need for mental health awareness trainings offered in Spanish, yet none are currently offered within our community. If funded by the SAMSHA Mental Health Awareness Training Grant, by the end of year 2 of the project, ESD 123 will provide 8 YMHFA trainings in Spanish to 240 Spanish- speaking community members. Young people are considered a vulnerable population who are more affected by behavioral health challenges. Barriers to addressing these issues include stigma related to receiving mental health treatment and a lack of funding for treatment. There is a concern with youth mental health and rising youth suicide in Benton and Franklin counties. According to the Washington State Department of Health, Benton County had a suicide rate of 12.4 (per 100,000) from 2013 to 2017, compared to the statewide average, which was a rate of 11.6. Our community has been devastated by the tragic impact of suicide among our youth. This has led to the increased need for preventing youth suicide and destigmatizing mental health. The specific outcome that ESD 123 hopes to achieve is to have 50% of participants in YMHFA and tMHFA trainings report increased confidence in knowing when to refer youth to services.

In an effort to expand mental health awareness, access to suicide screening and behavioral health referral process for student in the northeast Washington region, the Northeast Washington Educational Service District 101 (NEWESD 101) is applying for a FY 2021 Mental Health Awareness Training Grant in the amount of $125,000 per year. Project name: “Increasing Mental Health Awareness Across Northeast Washington” Population served/demographics: The project will begin Year One training staff in four local school districts (Medical Lake, Cheney, Reardan-Edwall and Spokane Public Schools) within the NEWESD 101 service area, with a collective enrollment of 36,611 students. The districts combined serve the largest population of military families within the NEWESD 101 service area, in addition to four zip codes that are among the most distressed in Washington on the basis of income, housing, and educational attainment. Throughout the five year duration of the grant, training, screening, and referral services have the capacity to reach up to 104,232 students and their families, in addition to school personnel in 59 school districts. While not all districts may elect to have staff become trained instructors, all districts will have the opportunity to be trained. In northeastern Washington, data showing students’ self-reported feelings of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation and attempts are consistently higher than the state and national averages. Upon deeper examination, the data show higher reports for depression and anxiety among students who are low income and also those who have moved at least one time in the last year. Given that the project is partnering with school districts that serve some of the most impoverished zip codes within the state and a higher than average military family population, the project is meeting a specific need within the selected school districts. Strategies: The project will partner with three school districts per year who will commit to sending elementary and secondary school administrators and educators to a three-day, in-person instructor training. Additionally, each participant will commit to co-facilitate at least three YMHFA Aiders courses per year. Measurable objectives: 1) Train at least 20 school staff as Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) instructors per year, with an overall goal of 100 new instructors by the end of 2026. 2) Instructors will co-facilitate three annual trainings to a minimum of 12 participants per session, with an overall goal of training 5,400 YMHFA Aiders by the end of 2026. Number served: 2,488 annually; 10,376 over the lifetime of the project.

In the rural communities of eastern Washington, current K-12 behavioral health prevention and intervention programs serve only 541 of 92,138 students, and even fewer have access to mental health treatment services. Yet, over a third of students in the region have self-reported feeling nervous, anxious or over the edge or not being able to stop or control worrying in the past two weeks. Even more alarming, one in every four 10th grade regional students reported considering suicide in the last year. In one regional district, over a third of 10th grade students not only considered suicide, but planned for suicide, and 21% of the 10th graders in the same district reported attempting suicide in the last year. All school districts identified for this project have more than 60% of students self-reporting feelings of anxiousness or worry lasting two weeks or more. There are rarely any service providers within the school district boundary lines and limited or no access to public transportation options. The overarching goal of the AWARE NorthEast project is to increase school-based access to mental health prevention, intervention, treatment and recovery support by making it available to the 5,669 students enrolled in six school districts, specifically in rural and underserved school districts in Spokane, Lincoln, Stevens and Whitman counties for over four years. Through this project, up to 450 students annually will have access to behavioral health intervention services, and up to 90 students annually will have access to on-site school-based mental health treatment. All 5,669 students in the identified districts for this project will receive universal Tier 1 mental health awareness strategies. A secondary goal for this project is to increase educator efficacy and effectiveness relative to trauma informed teaching practices. Through contracting with Washington State University Child and Family Research Unit, we anticipate increasing the educators exposed to trauma informed practices by up to 692 teachers and other school staff. Over the four years of the grant, 5 new schools will also have the opportunity to engage in a three-year school climate transformation professional development and coaching consultation program called CLEAR Collaborative Learning for Educational Achievement and Resilience. A third goal is to increase exposure and familiarity to mental health awareness, suicide signs and symptoms recognition, and referral processes to students, staff, and families. This goal will be accomplished by training up to 100 educators to be Teen Mental Health First Aid instructors, training up to 4450 teens and adults in Teen Mental Health First Aid (tMHFA). TMHFA is an evidence-based curriculum that teaches teens how to identify, understand and respond to mental health and substance use challenges among their friends and peers. Teens will learn skills to have supportive conversations with their friends and how to get help from a responsible and trusted adult. NEWESD 101 will utilize: 1) the three-tiered pyramid public health model for providing supports to school-aged youth to promote wellness (universal/promotion); 2) targeted services to those who need more support (secondary prevention); and 3) intensive services to those who need them (tertiary intervention) directly within the school system is the best method for meeting the needs of students, especially those who live in rural communities with disproportionate access to services.