Notice. Talk. Act.? At school - the notice

Talk. Act.® at school (NTA) mental health professional development program seeks to train teachers and other relevant school personnel in middle schools and high schools: to raise awareness to help teachers and relevant school personnel notice emerging mental health conditions, increase their capacity to talk with students about emerging mental health conditions, and increase the knowledge of teachers and school personnel to act by connecting students who may need mental health care to resources and treatment. The key messaging of the program is notice.talk.act®. Teachers and school personnel work closely with teenagers and are ongoing observers of their usual behaviors, social interactions and emotions. Therefore, teachers and school personnel are uniquely situated to promote positive mental health, resilience and coping skills. The NTA program delivers the curriculum over a 2-step process, uniquely designed to fit the desired professional development training time frame that schools look for, which is between 90-120 minutes. Step 1 begins with an online e-learning module. This module creates a baseline of knowledge for teachers and relevant school personnel on the "notice" portion of the NTA key framework and also addresses the "talk" and "act" components of the training. IT is interactive with videos, audio play backs, and quizzes to assess knowledge and provide real-time feedback to users. Data from the final assessment can help elucidate staff concerns or areas of improvement that facilitators of the in-person classroom module (step 2) can then use. Step 2 of the NTA curriculum is a tailored classroom module. This module is delivered by NTA certified trainers, psychiatrists working in collaboration with the school and community-based mental health professionals. To ensure that each school's classroom training is relevant to all staff, key pieces are tailored to: student demographics, current concerns of educational staff, community trauma that may be impacting students and staff, and current available resources. This portion of the curriculum focuses on the "talk" and "act" portions of the program. The certified trainers and school and community mental health providers work together to address the availability of both school and community mental health resources, including services and supports for students and families. There are five key performance indicators that we will track to measure the efficacy of the notice. Talk. Act.® at school: student truancy, discipline referrals, support services referrals, major mental health events, and framework implementation. Our goals, over each two-year evaluation period, are to: decrease the student truancy rate in each enrolled school by 33% by implementing notice. Talk. Act.® framework to address truancy related behaviors; increase support services referrals seen by each school support team by 33% by effectively educating school personnel about the available services and supports in their community; decrease discipline referrals by 50% by identifying and addressing behavior issues before escalation; decrease major mental health events 50% by proactively connecting students to appropriate care; facilitate trainings such that 90% of trained individuals use the notice. Talk. Act.® framework. With mhat grant funding expected number of teachers and school personnel trained is: year 1: 4,800 year 2: 5,200, and year 3: 5,700, year 4: 6,400, year 5: 6,900. The total number of teachers and school personnel that will be trained is 28,900.