Essex county community foundation mental health initiative: seth moulton - massachusetts's 6TH congressional district was disproportionally impacted by behavioral health challenges prior to covid-19

In the past two years, the immediate and downstream impacts of the pandemic have significantly increased behavioral health issues for countless youth, families, and individuals. There have been alarming increases in suicide, substance use, and mental health care service gaps. With this funding, essex county community foundation (eccf) is poised to reduce the impact of substance use and mental illness on our communities with partners that work with eccf and congressman moulton. Through congressman moulton's community project proposal, eccf's program on behavioral health will invest in organizations to develop, test or scale solutions to improve the behavioral health sector by working collectively to identify the root causes that lead to health issues and systemic barriers to care. We anticipate serving minimally 2,500-5,000 people annually. The new compass wellness program (CWP) at lahey beverly hospital will create two new positions to provide trauma-informed, gender specific behavioral health care for pregnant and postpartum women with psychiatric disorders and dual diagnosis. The hospital currently delivers 2,000 women a year, 20% of whom have a mental health need, with no dedicated maternal behavioral services. Jeanne geiger crisis center's (jgcc) advocacy, therapeutic, and legal programs will provide an integrated web of support as the needs of domestic violence victims/survivors shift from crisis intervention to building independence. The center uses evidence-based best practices to meet the rising mental health needs of families in crisis and mitigate the effects of trauma. Patton homestead INC. Will support veterans in mass by providing meeting and programming space to be used by veteran affairs departments and other regional veterans support organizations. This will result in programs such as transition assistance, suicide care, interdiction, prevention and buddy support systems and reunions, and family/spousal support groups to improve mental health outcomes for veterans. Older adults in lynn, mass, particularly lower income seniors, which according to the healthy aging data report for the city, score worse than the state average on behavioral health and chronic disease prevalence, will be supported through a new position at the just opened lynn senior center. The new staff will support outreach, social work, programming, and services for the population of over 14,000 seniors in lynn. The salem police innovative mental health clinician CO-response collaborative for a 24/7/365 rapid response pilot program will support the federal 988 suicide hotline initiative in essex county and intervention in salem, mass. This funding will increase the total hours of clinician coverage by fifty-six hours a week for a total of ninety-six hours of coverage weekly. IT also includes funding for mental health related (CIT) trainings for ten police officers that focuses on DE-escalation techniques, and connecting mental health and substance use needs to services. The social, emotional, academic development (sead) community project at bedford public schools will support the district with a student population of 2,600 from three distinct communities - bedford, boston, and hanscom air force base. To mitigate rising mental health concerns and ensure equity in access, the sead community project uses social emotional learning data to identify needs and set priorities for strengthening social, emotional, and academic programs, practices, and services for students and staff.