Central East MHTTC: Promoting Educator Well-Being
Educators and school-based staff play important roles in supporting student mental health, often listening to students’ fears and concerns, and helping them cope with stressful events. In addition, educators and staff are working long days and often report feeling overwhelmed by juggling many job responsibilities. The effect of this stress can take the form of compassion fatigue, burnout, or secondary traumatic stress that contribute to lower job satisfaction and educator turnover. With the start of COVID in 2019, its continued dominance in 2020, and its lingering effects, many public school teachers and staff in the Central East region contemplated leaving the profession due to burnout and compassion fatigue. The Central East MHTTC, in its assessment of the State Departments of Education and local school districts in the region, found that the school mental health workforce wanted more training and technical assistance in compassion fatigue.
Mid-America MHTTC: The Nebraska School Mental Health Project
With the ever-growing need for school mental health services across the state of Nebraska, the Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) created the Nebraska School Mental Health Project to provide resources to support school mental health efforts across the state. As part of this project, they identified a need for leadership training and guided strategic planning in implementing comprehensive school mental health systems and best practices and partnered with Mid-America MHTTC for training and technical assistance in this area.
Northeast & Caribbean MHTTC: Supporting the Mental Health of Puerto Rican Youth
Puerto Rican teenagers have unique mental health needs due to the traumatic events that have occurred since 2017 (e.g., Hurricanes Irma and María, ongoing earthquakes and aftershocks starting in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic). One way that the Comprehensive Adolescent Health Services (SISA, in Spanish) Program of the Puerto Rico Department of Health is helping to serve teenagers, is through a youth promoters program, in which youth aged 10 to 14 (6-8th grade) serve as “peers teaching peers” and provide messages promoting good health and the prevention of risky behaviors in school, the community, and/or within their families. The SISA Program identified that their coordinators, who represent Puerto Rico’s school regions and educate youth promoters, needed more education and training on youth mental health. Starting in September 2021 (and currently ongoing), the Northeast and Caribbean MHTTC has provided technical assistance on youth mental health to the SISA Program and their coordinators, with the ultimate goal of boosting mental health awareness across Puerto Rican youth.
Pacific Southwest MHTTC: School Mental Health Grief Readiness Pilot Lab & Series
Mental health providers and school mental health champions in the Pacific Southwest region are constantly providing grief support in the field, though many are under-trained in grief response and recovery practices and some are experiencing their own grief. To address the need for evidence-based grief support in the mental health field, the Pacific Southwest MHTTC led a 6-week Grief Readiness Pilot Lab in Spring 2021 to guide school mental health practitioners to explore the topic of grief and develop Grief Readiness Plans. Then, informed by the pilot, the Pacific Southwest MHTTC offered a Grief Readiness Series for school and mental health leaders nationwide in the fall of 2021.
New England MHTTC: Childhood-Trauma Learning Collaborative
National American Indian and Alaska Native MHTTC: Special Learning Series for Tribal Schools as they Reopen Amidst COVID-19
From January to June 2020, American Indians and Alaska Natives were 3-5 times more likely to be diagnosed with COVID-19 than non-Hispanic whites, and their mortality rate was almost twice as high, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Additionally, in August of 2020, the CDC released a report that stressed the importance of a “culturally responsive public health effort that sustains the strengths of AI/AN communities” (Hatcher et al., 2020). Through their K-12 initiative, the National American Indian and Alaska Native MHTTC contributed to this response by providing needed guidance as it related to schools serving Native students, mental health, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mid-America MHTTC: Technical Assistance and Training in Innovative Business Models and Practice in Pediatric Primary Care in Rural Nebraska
A licensed independent mental health practitioner (LIMHP), providing behavioral health care in a rural primary care clinic in Saline County, Nebraska, reached out to the Mid-America ATTC to set the ball rolling on this project. Ten years ago, this LIMHP completed training in pediatric integrated care through the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). About 5 years ago, she established an independent practice and contracted with a hospital organization to provide behavioral health services in their primary care clinic. This provider and the hospital organization initiated discussions to enhance their knowledge on pediatric integrated care and explore a new integrated care business partnership. The hospital organization wanted to pursue a new type of business partnership in which the LIMHPs would be better integrated into their system in terms of workflow, referral, communication, and business operations. They recognized both the value of this LIMHP’s behavioral health practice as well as her interest in providing behavioral health care in a rural, underserved area. Saline County is designated as a geographic Mental Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA) by the Health Resources & Services Administration.
South Southwest MHTTC: Texas School Mental Health Professional Learning Community and Support of Small and Rural Districts
Texas legislative changes spurred the need for schools to think differently about supporting school mental health. With over 1200 districts, Texas relies on Regional Educational Service Centers to support Local Education Agencies (LEAs) through training and technical assistance. However, Texas Educational Service Centers had varying expertise in school mental health and no organized process for supporting implementation of school mental health best practices within their region. In collaboration with the South Southwest MHTTC, Texas’ State Education Agency developed a school mental health model, based in part on the information outlined in the National School Mental Health Best Practices: Implementation Guidance Modules.
National Hispanic and Latino MHTTC: Building Cultural Competency to Address the Mental Health Needs of Migrant Students
Ventura County, CA, is home to a large Hispanic and Latino migrant population. About 60% of students in the county self-identify as Hispanic or Latino. The Ventura County Office of Education identified a need to improve culturally responsive mental health services aligned with the health beliefs, practices, and needs of Hispanic migrant students and their families. The National Hispanic and Latino MHTTC, in collaboration with the Ventura County Office of Education (VCOE), implemented targeted technical assistance to promote cultural and linguistic competence among school district staff serving Hispanic migrant children and their families.
Northeast and Caribbean MHTTC: Motivational Technical Assistance Project
Motivational Interviewing is an evidence-based practice that can assist in engaging clients into behavioral health services. “MI is a collaborative, goal-oriented style of communication with particular attention to the language of change. It is designed to strengthen personal motivation for and commitment to a specific goal by eliciting and exploring the person’s own reasons for change within an atmosphere of acceptance and compassion” (Miller & Rollnick, 2013, p. 29). Bringing mental health professionals to competence in using Motivational Interviewing, and sustaining its use in practice is an intensive process. This project was developed in response to several requests from providers in HHS Region 2 and discussions regarding the need to implement and sustain Motivational Interviewing within their organizations and with all levels of staff, including administrators, supervisors, and direct service providers.
Great Lakes MHTTC: Youth/Teen Mental Health First Aid Training Initiative
Addressing the mental health needs of individuals is critically important. Half of all mental illnesses begin by age 14 and three-quarters by mid-20s. Left unaddressed, mental health issues can lead to serious consequences for a young person’s well-being, including increased risk of dropping out of school or experiencing homelessness. Tragically, suicide is the second leading cause of death for 15 to 24 year-olds. Through support and partnership with the Illinois Association for Behavioral Health (IABH), the Great Lakes MHTTC committed to conducting a Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) Training Initiative to provide training to adults who work with youth on how to identify, understand and respond to signs of mental illnesses and substance use disorders.
New England MHTTC: Person-Centered Recovery Planning in Behavioral Health
The New England MHTTC Person-Centered Recovery Planning (PCRP) Learning Collaborative project is a multi-agency learning collaborative to provide intense training, TA, and implementation support around the practice of PCRP. It began with a series of introductory webinars in December 2019 and was scheduled to conclude in December 2020; however, supports will be extended for 3 months due to significant project disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Primary faculty are Dr. Janis Tondora of the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health and Dr. Dan Wartenberg of Newport Mental Health.
Northwest MHTTC: Interconnected Systems Framework Demonstration Project
In many schools in the Pacific Northwest, as is the case across the country, school mental health (when available) is often parallel or siloed from existing social, emotional, and behavioral initiatives, creating inefficiencies and inequities, as well as disconnections and delays for students receiving support. To address these issues, the Northwest MHTTC implemented the Interconnected Systems Framework (ISF) Demonstration Project, which aims to impact student achievement and attainment, increase identification and impact on students with internalizing behaviors, improve wellness, and reduce rates of student discipline problems and related impact of trauma, opioid and substance misuse, suicide prevention, depression, and/or anxiety.
Southeast MHTTC: School Mental Health Regional Learning Community
A comprehensive needs assessment was conducted across the Southeast region in 2019 to identify top priority areas for which state leaders wanted to receive trainings and technical assistance. School mental health was among the top priority areas identified. The Southeast MHTTC, in collaboration with the National Center for School Mental Health, implemented the School Mental Health Regional Learning Community to engage the region’s school mental health leaders in advancing comprehensive school-based mental health systems.
Central East MHTTC: Workforce Recruitment and Retention Collaborative
The Central East MHTTC, in collaboration with the Annapolis Coalition on the Behavioral Health Workforce and the Community Behavioral Health Association of Maryland, invited organizations to apply to participate in a Workforce Recruitment and Retention Collaborative. This project educated community-based behavioral health providers in Maryland on the multiple factors contributing to the crisis in the recruitment and retention of behavioral staff. The collaborative assisted providers to identify factors influencing their ability to recruit and retain staff and develop individualized action plans. It also provided technical assistance and allowed providers to share progress and receive feedback from members of the Collaborative.