Ensuring mental health awareness and training in the ST

Joseph mercy chelsea service area - ST. Joseph mercy chelsea (sjmc) hospital will work with 30 local partners to provide and coordinate training to 2,500 people to help them recognize and assist youth experiencing mental health crises. These evidence-based trainings will be held in five rural towns in southeast michigan - chelsea, dexter, grass lake, manchester and stockbridge - for parents and caregivers, adults who work with youth, and peer leaders. The primary population of focus is youth, age 18 and under (there are approximately 9,000 youth enrolled in public school in the region). Those who interact with youth will receive training: schools, parents and caregivers, healthcare and service providers, faith communities, youth in peer leadership, scouts, libraries, and a teen center. Adults also struggle with mental illness, including current and former members of the military, and the training and assistance will be offered through a family systems lens to also benefit them. The service area is the five-town region that sjmc serves. The total area population is 56,023 (source: 2010 census). The average race distribution is 95% caucasian, 2.1% hispanic, and less than one percent each of other races. This area has suffered five youth suicides in the past five years, and dozens of incidents of youth self-harm. Strategies and interventions: (1) offer evidence-based mental health awareness training, (2) identify and prioritize individuals to receive training, (3) identify resources and supports available for mental health, (4) establish referral mechanisms, (5) develop and implement mental health awareness training plan, (6) strengthen existing collaborative partnerships and develop new partnerships, (7) leverage other funds to support the work, (8) create social marketing campaigns to reduce stigma, (9) build capacity to sustain community-based mental health strategies. Goal 1: increase capacity of community agencies to coordinate efforts to prevent and reduce the negative effects of mental illness. Goal 2: reduce the negative effects of mental illness among youth by addressing factors in the community that increase risk and promoting factors that minimize risk. Program objective highlights: by year 5 of the grant, sjmc will: (a) train 2,500 unduplicated individuals to identify and respond to youth and adults experiencing a mental health crisis, and to refer to mental health resources and supports available, and (b) engage 30 partner agencies to assist. By september 29, 2026: (a) self-reported depression and serious consideration of suicide in high school students will be reduced, as measured by the michigan profile for healthy youth, (b) 90% of students enrolled in public schools will be screened annually for mental illness and referred for services if indicated, (c) partner agencies will have facilitated 1,000 referrals to mental health services among youth and adults, and (d) sjmc will have reached 20,000 people with a social marketing and awareness campaign to reduce stigma for mental illness.