Products and Resources Catalog

Webinar Summary The Great Lakes Mental Health Technology Transfer Center (MHTTC) is part of a national network funded by SAMHSA to provide training and technical assistance (TA) to mental health treatment providers in Health and Human Services Region 5, which covers Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin.  Join our introductory webinar to learn more about our team, the structure of our Center, and regional training and TA needs. Hear more about our supplemental initiative focused  on school-based mental health will also be presented.  You will also learn to access training and TA through your state provider association. 

Crisis and loss are common in the lives of students, whether due to a death or crisis involving a student's individual family or one that affects the entire school community. Major events have the potential to cause short- and long-term effects on the psychological functioning, academic achievement, emotional adjustment, health, and developmental trajectory of students. Classroom educators and other school professionals can play a vital role in providing important support to students to promote their understanding of the event, minimize the academic impact through academic accommodations, help them learn coping strategies to accelerate their adjustment and minimize their distress, and minimize maladaptive coping mechanisms and behavioral difficulties. Yet most educators and other school professionals have had limited to no professional training in how to support students in the aftermath of crisis and loss. This workshop helps school professionals learn basic skills in how to talk with and support individual students or the entire class/school as they struggle to understand and cope with a crisis or loss in their lives. Dr. Schonfeld draws on over 30 years' experience in school crisis response and pediatric bereavement to illustrate key points.  

As we launch into Spring 2019, we are excited to share several learning events with you. We're hosting upcoming webinars on co-occurring disorder, school crisis, and low-barrier mental health services. We hope you will join us and your peers for communities of practice on cultural and linguistic competence. And we're attending upcoming conferences in the region -- we look forward to the chance to meet you there.

Culture shapes every aspect of patient care, influencing when, where, how, and to whom patients narrate their experiences of illness and distress, the patterning of symptoms, and the models clinicians use to interpret and understand symptoms in terms of psychiatric diagnoses. Culture also shapes patients’ perceptions of care, including what types of treatment are acceptable and for how long. Even when patients and clinicians share similar cultural, ethnic or linguistic backgrounds, culture impacts care through other influences on identity, such as those due to gender, age, class, race, occupation, sexual orientation, and religion. Culture affects the clinical encounter for every patient, not only underserved minority groups, and cultural formulation therefore is an essential component of any comprehensive assessment. Cultural misunderstandings, biases, and communication gaps between providers and patients also contribute to disparities in the care of diverse populations, including by race/ethnicity, religion, gender identity, and sexual orientation, suggesting person-centered cultural evaluation may help reduce care disparities. The purposes of this webinar are to understand the rationale, development, and content of a novel approach for conducting cultural assessments: the DSM-5 Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI); and to discuss training resources and implementation strategies for integrating the CFI in diagnostic and treatment planning.

Expanding workforce diversity is a critical strategy to support improved access to health and health care for communities of color. To support this work, the PS MHTTC created a self-assessment tool to help mental health organizations explore their implementation of workforce diversity strategies: Assessing Workforce Diversity: A Tool for Mental Health Organizations on the Path to Health Equity. This workshop explores each of the tool's six key domains to build workforce diversity: Leadership and Governance Recruitment Orientation, Onboarding, and Ongoing Training Retention and Professional Development Communication Partnership and Community Goals This workshop outlines the purpose of these areas in strengthening workforce diversity and explore the different issues that require attention.   LEARNING OBJECTIVES: Explore the importance of a diverse workforce in effectively addressing mental health disparities for the populations in your community. Identify the critical components needed to assess the successes and challenges of your mental health organization in building a diverse workforce. Identify areas in which your organization excels and also areas in which you may want to focus attention. Identify action steps to address areas where your organization is more limited and incorporate these action steps into an existing organizational plan (e.g., strategic, cultural competency, or diversity plan).   INTENDED AUDIENCE: Policy makers Mental health leaders Service providers Human resource officers Community partners Mental health advocates  

Want to figure out how to create and develop policies that contribute to trauma-informed school environments? Tasked with ensuring trauma-informed  work is sustainable and scalable at your school, district office, agency, department, or organization? During this session, we'll explore the four choice points leaders face; tips  for successful policy development and implementation; and examples of current policy at the local, district, state, and federal levels from which you can choose and use for your own work. Additional resources include: Creating Trauma-Informed Policies: A Practice Guide for School & Mental Health Leadership: Guide and Infographic.  

All health service systems are undergoing fundamental changes in order to embrace the diversity of populations in the U.S. today. Many health systems continue to grapple with the numerous challenges of implementing systemic change to respond effectively to the multiple needs of diverse cultural and linguistic groups. Organizations working together as part of a broader system often do not know where to start the work of integrating cultural and linguistic competence. To do this work, organizations first need to come to a common understanding of culture and cultural competence and adopt a systemic framework for its integration into services and supports. This presentation provides a conceptual framework for cultural competence in health. Participants not only define and identify the framework and underlying principles of cultural competence, they begin to explore how these principles will influence their roles and functions. LEARNING OBJECTIVES: Identify the components of a conceptual framework for cultural competence. Differentiate characteristics of culturally competent organizations and systems. Describe the implications for cultural competence in services and support systems. Determine steps to provide leadership in becoming more culturally and linguistically competent.   INTENDED AUDIENCE: Policy makers Mental health leaders Service providers Human resource officers Community partners Mental health advocates    

Mental Health and Student Learning Outcomes Webinar Series #2 Join nationally recognized suicide prevention advocates Leah Harris and Kelechi Ubozoh in exploring what a trauma-informed suicide prevention approach for educators might look like. This webinar begins with the perspective of a young person with lived experience of suicidal thoughts. Presenters identify common myths and misconceptions about students and suicide, and explore the vital importance of including students as partners in suicide prevention efforts. Examples of promising student-led initiatives, including peer-to-peer programs and school awareness campaigns, are provided.   Learning Objectives: Identify several myths or stereotypes about suicide and students Explore a framework for understanding suicide prevention through a trauma-informed and healing-centered lens Understand the links between trauma, toxic stress, and suicide and the latest findings in neuroscience that cite connectedness as a vital protective factor Describe the central values of trauma-informed practice and how to apply them to suicide prevention efforts in educational settings Name examples of model student-led suicide prevention programs and campaigns    

This resource, developed by a workgroup across the MHTTC Network, is designed to help schools better support students and families in the aftermath of violence and trauma. It provides strategies to assist schools with readiness, response, and recovery to help a school community support resilience in the event of a tragedy. It offers places to turn for more resources and discusses terminology and concepts related to suicide and grief. Finally, it highlights the importance of providing culturally responsive services, with example cultural considerations for schools to help Hispanic/Latino students struggling with grief and trauma.

The current sociocultural climate and discourse in the United States elucidates the importance of understanding our humanity while fostering deeper cross-cultural relationships. As the nation demographically represents a multitude of cultures, our ability to engage in thoughtful and meaningful discussions on cultural issues, remains ever present. This webinar addresses why cultural humility matters in our work as service providers, the current literature on color-blind racial ideology, and implicit bias. The webinar provides insight into the importance of understanding one’s own limitations in ideologies as a way to enhance our service as cultural workers, both personally and professionally.

Mental health among all cultures is one of the most relevant topics in today’s news. The webinar discusses the impact of mental health services in the school setting. As part of the National Hispanic Latino and Mental Health Technology Transfer Center ongoing commitment with School-Based mental health awareness, we bring to you Scott Bloom, LCSW-R. Mr. Bloom has extensive experience working with schools as a social worker, supervisor and directed nine school mental health clinics, and currently as the Director of School Mental Health services for the NYC Office of School Health. Through this webinar participants will understand how we all can learn a common language between mental health and school communities, recognize why is student’s mental health important to consider in the school settings, and the importance that mental health providers understand how to engage the Hispanic and Latino community.

The current sociocultural climate and discourse in the United States elucidates the importance of understanding our humanity while fostering deeper cross-cultural relationships. As the nation demographically represents a multitude of cultures, our ability to engage in thoughtful and meaningful discussions on cultural issues, remains ever present. This webinar addresses why cultural humility matters in our work as service providers, the current literature on color-blind racial ideology, and implicit bias. The webinar provides insight into the importance of understanding one’s own limitations in ideologies as a way to enhance our service as cultural workers, both personally and professionally.

Michelle Zechner, PhD, LSW, CPRP is an Assistant Professor at Rutgers-School of Health Professions, Department of Psychiatric Rehabilitation and Counseling Professions. She has focused her 25 year career on supporting the recovery of people with mental illnesses and their families. She has worked in a variety of community and inpatient settings, including nursing homes, outpatient mental health services, state psychiatric hospitals, and community services for older adults. In her current role she has focused on implementation of evidence-based psychosocial practices in psychiatric hospitals, developing and testing health and wellness promotion interventions in community settings, teaching students, training diverse mental health staff on best practice interventions for older persons with mental health conditions, and conducting research. Dr. Zechner’s research includes the development of multi-domain wellness programs for people with mental illnesses, promotion of and adherence to physical activity in people with mental illness, use of peer health coaching strategies and identifying best practices for use with older adults with mental illnesses. She has co-authored peer-reviewed and technical publications on health promotion for persons with mental illness, and has presented her work at local, national and international conferences. She is passionate about supporting older adults with mental illnesses to improve their mental and physical health.   Part 2 of the webinar addresses the following learning objectives: Discuss evidence based practices (EBPs) for age onset depression Identify EBPs and best practices for programming for older adults with serious mental illnesses Discuss wellness as a framework for developing new programming Explore knowledge, skills and attitudes needed for working with older adults    Click here to view a recording of the webinar delivered on March 27, 2019.  Click on the download link above to access the webinar slides. 

Access for resources and learning sessions about how to navigate the intersections of school violence, trauma, and suicide.

Why do we, as behavioral health providers, need to be concerned about the social determinants of health? This brief fact sheet examines how mental health is shaped by the social, economic, and physical environments in which people live, and how providers can address the determinants through social justice collaborations.

This handout summarizes the research that links student mental health to academic outcomes. This research brief charts the effects of untreated mental health challenges on academic achievement, GPA, test scores, attendance, and graduation.

Suicide Prevention for Primary Care Physicians March 26, 2019 Learn more about the toolkit which offers the support necessary to establish the primary care provider as one member of a team, fully equipped to reduce suicide risk among their patients. Recording Suicide Prevention Toolkit

This month's newsletter highlights several upcoming webinars from our center, provides information about accessing onsite learning experiences with our team and partners.

Dr. Michelle Zechner, PhD, LSW, CPRP is an Assistant Professor at Rutgers, School of Health Professions, Department of Psychiatric Rehabilitation and Counseling Professions. She has focused her 25 year career on supporting the recovery of people with mental illnesses and their families. She has worked in a variety of community and inpatient settings including nursing homes, outpatient mental health services, state psychiatric hospitals, and community services for older adults. In her current role she has focused on implementation of evidence-based psychosocial practices in psychiatric hospitals, developing and testing health and wellness promotion interventions in community settings, teaching students, training diverse mental health staff on best practice interventions for older persons with mental illnesses, and conducting research. Dr. Zechner's research includes the development of multi-domain wellness programs for people with mental illnesses, promotion of and adherence to physical activity in people with mental illness, use of peer health coaching strategies and identifying best practices for use with older adults with mental illnesses. She has co-authored peer-reviewed and technical publications on health promotion for people with mental illnesses, and has presented her work at local, national, and international conferences. She is passionate about supporting older adults with mental illnesses to improve their mental and physical health.    Part 1 of the webinar addresses the following learning objectives: Develop understanding of older adults with SMI Describe this growing population Identify unique concerns for this population Health challenges Psychiatric symptoms Evaluate the strengths that develop with older age   Click here to view a recording of the webinar delivered on March 20, 2019. (Please note the recording begins a couple of slides in).  Click on the download link above to access the webinar slides. 

These resources support those seeking care on their own behalf and those providing care to others.  There are culturally specific resources for Muslim communities and broader resources for all those who are impacted by these events.  There are resources for educators, parents, youth and young adults, and healthcare providers.  Several resources can be used to support the students in our schools. Those seeking additional support for trauma and bereavement are invited to contact us. We can provide direct assistance and linkages with other regional centers.

This one-page (two-sided) informational document gives an overview of Indiana's mental health infrastructure, funding, and major conferences in 2019, effective March 2019.

This one-page (two-sided) informational document gives an overview of Michigan's mental health infrastructure, funding, and major conferences in 2019, effective March 2019.

This one-page (two-sided) informational document gives an overview of Minnesota's mental health infrastructure, funding, and major conferences in 2019, effective March 2019.

This one-page (two-sided) informational document gives an overview of Ohio's mental health infrastructure, funding, and major conferences in 2019, effective March 2019.