Maine youth mental health awareness training (mymhat) - the maine youth mental health awareness training (mymhat) project will provide youth mental health first aid and mental health first aid…

Maine youth mental health awareness training (mymhat) - the maine youth mental health awareness training (mymhat) project will provide youth mental health first aid and mental health first aid trainings (ymhfa & mhfa) to adults who care for (or have contact with) school-aged youth, the population of focus (POF). Within the POF, subpopulations identified include LGBTQ2S+ and black, indigenous & communities of color (bipoc), including maine's immigrant/refugee populations. There are approximately 37,038 school-aged youth in penobscot and androscoggin counties in maine, the geographic catchment areas where trainings and services will be delivered. Both counties contain multiple, designated mental health professional shortage areas (hpsas). The goals are to 1) increase the capacity, confidence, and motivation of adults who care for school-aged youth, to identify mental health needs within that population, facilitate referrals to care, and respond to crisis situations, including suicide or suicidal ideation, 2) to increase the capacity of those adults to be better able to identify their own mental health needs, along with the mental health needs of adult caregivers of school-aged youth with whom they have contact, in order to facilitate appropriate referrals to care and respond to crises, and 3) to increase access to referral pathways for people in mental health crisis, and link the POF to mental health resources and services. The number of individuals who will receive evidence-based trainings throughout the five-year lifetime of this project are 270 in year 1, and 750 per year for years 2-5, with a total of 3270 individuals receiving trainings. The measurable objectives of mymhat include: by 1/31/2022 to train and certify 8 instructors in ymhfa & mhfa; by year 5 to provide 109 ymhfa and/or mhfa trainings; by year 5 distribute 1,930 acadia cares/races packages to schools and community partners as additional mental health support resources; by year 5 to increase by 65% a) ymhfa participant confidence, capacity, and motivation to identify and respond to mental health needs of school-aged youth, including responding to/DE-escalating crisis situations, b) ymhfa participant knowledge of how and where to make mental health referrals for school-aged youth, c) mhfa participant confidence, capacity, and motivation to identify and respond to their own mental health needs, or the mental health needs of adult caregivers of school-aged youth with whom they have contact, including responding to or DE-escalating crisis situations and d) mhfa participant knowledge of how and where to make mental health referrals for adults; by year 1 northern light behavioral health resource center (bhrc) will develop the capacity to accept requests for youth and adult mental health referrals generating from community-based partners in androscoggin and penobscot counties; by year 5 bhrc will reflect scaled increases per year for additional community-based referrals for adults and youths in androscoggin and penobscot counties to appropriate clinical or community-based mental health services (breakdown of yearly targets in mymhat narrative).