Grants Dashboard

To help serve youth with severe emotional disturbance (SED) and their families, the Mountain State Parents Children and Adolescent Network (MSPCAN) has developed a Statewide Family Network project to ensure self-sufficient, empowered family networks that will effectively participate in mental health services planning and health care reform activities related to improving community-based services for children and adolescents with SED and their families. Statistics from the Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health demonstrate a high percentage and number of youth aged 2-17 with SED in West Virginia. Specifically, 7,708 youth had depression, 11,456 reported anxiety disorders, and 23,896 were diagnosed with attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. According to the CDC's 2013 High School Youth Risk Behavior Survey, nearly 27.5% of West Virginia youth reported that they had felt sad or hopeless almost every day for two or more weeks in a row so that they stopped doing some usual activities at least once over the course of the previous year. Suicide was contemplated or attempted by a troubling percent of youth- 15.4% reported that they seriously considered suicide; 12.8% reported they made a plan to commit suicide; and 7.5% attempted suicide. The goal of the Statewide Family Network Program in to ensure that families are the catalysts for transforming the mental health and related systems in West Virginia.

Parents, Let's Unite for Kids, Inc. (PLUK) Parent Center Network has served Montana families since 1984 and plans to build on successful strategies to inform and empower the 10,000 families and children statewide who deal with mental health issues. The primary need and reported benefit from children, youth and families in Montana working with the PLUK Parent Center is overcoming isolation; feeling they are not alone when dealing with the barriers encountered when dealing with mental health issues. Children, youth, and families who are informed consumers and participate as equal partners in shared decision-making, consistently achieve better outcomes across the age spectrum. The PLUK Parent Center will use a variety of proven strategies across the state to inform, support, and empower children, youth, families, and the individuals and organizations that serve them. Information, training, and support are provided through a network of trained and experienced peers in formats that are accessible to all families state-wide. Through education and coalition-building, families become the catalysts for transforming mental health and related systems.

The Family Involvement Center (FIC) will become the statewide family network organization for the parents of children, youth, and young adults who have serious behavioral and mental health challenges in Arizona. The "Catalysts for Change(CFC) " project, will increase our abilities to further recruit, train, and mobilize diverse parent, youth, and young adults from around the state to provide mutual aid and to participate in state policy boards and advocacy events. FIC will work on the following goals and objectives: Goal 1: FIC will strengthen our statewide family network infrastructure to annually recruit and train 25 diverse parent and youth leaders and FIC workforce to provide mutual support to one another and/or to participate in local and state policy and system reform boards impacting mental health. Goal 2: Recruit annually 25 parent/family caregivers, youth, and young adults to participate in state planning and policy boards with 50% being from targeted populations (rural areas, LBGQT, and transition age youth, veterans, and recovery). Goal 3: Develop and deliver targeted training and technical assistance opportunities that will provide distance learning and face to face training opportunities to increase the skills and capacities annually of 75 parent and youth leaders, FIC and others in the behavioral health workforce. Cutting edge technology approaches will further develop our abilities to offer webinar and e-learning opportunities statewide; and we will host an annual statewide family network conference.

The Tennessee Statewide Family network at the Mental Health Transformation Alliance will develop, enhance, and sustain an independent and diverse family and youth voice statewide, supporting families in being a driving force behind system transformation in the children's mental health arena and enabling families and youth to navigate the child-serving system. Our strategies/interventions include Rural Family Networks in areas of underrepresented populations. We will bring together the statewide network to establish a pathway of collaboration that reflects the diverse populations, geographic areas, and organizations (formal and informal) through a statewide networking, technical assistance, and strategic plan for ongoing sustainability and growth. Our goal and objectives are: Goal 1: Build Tennessee Rural Family Networks, network with diverse families, build youth voice, and create a pathway to involvement. Goal 2: Foster leadership skills among families of children and youth statewide with serious emotional disturbances (SED) so they can play a meaningful role in developing community networks. Goal 3: Provide technical assistance, information, support, and resources to individual youth with SED, the families of children and youth with SED, organizations and programs also serving these families so families and youth can effectively navigate the system to make wise mental health choices. Goal 4: Promote peer support and social inclusion of families with children and youth with SED throughout communities to facilitate programs and services that are family and youth driven and decrease stigma and bullying.

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.