Outpatient and medication management services - alexander youth network's outpatient and medication management services project will provide trauma-informed community-based outpatient counseling and…

Outpatient and medication management services - alexander youth network's outpatient and medication management services project will provide trauma-informed community-based outpatient counseling and medication management services for 200 children age 3 to 21 across the state of NC over the two-year project period. This project seeks to make mental health care services more accessible for children who are uninsured or under-insured and are members of historically racially and socioeconomically disadvantaged communities. Based on historical data, IT is expected that over half of the children served through this project will be minorities and almost a third will have trauma as a primary mental health diagnosis. Over 75% of the children served through this project will rely on medicaid to pay for this service with a significant number being uninsured or having inadequate insurance coverage to access needed treatment. This project will provides services the following counties in the state of north carolina: guilford, forsyth, mecklenburg, and cleveland. Because of the prevalence of trauma in the population served, outpatient counseling services utilize evidence-based treatment interventions such as CBT, trauma-focused cognitive behavior therapy, dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), seeking safety, match, emdr, the neurosequential model of therapeutics (NMT), MST, and other modalities for delivering treatment to children and families in a trauma-informed fashion. Project goals include: 1. Increase accessibility of community-based mental health treatment for children across NC who cannot otherwise receive needed mental health treatment services due to lack of affordability and/or limited physical access to these services. 2. Improve mental health outcomes for children in vulnerable populations and 3. Raise awareness of and willingness to access mental health treatment services among minority and economically disadvantaged communities. These goals will be achieved through the following objectives: objective 1A: by the end of year 2, this project will provide trauma-informed outpatient and/or medication management services to a total of 200 unduplicated individuals with prioritization for children who are uninsured or under-insured. Objective 1B: throughout the 2-year project period, 100% of youth will be offered the opportunity to engage treatment through tele-health to increase accessibility and engagement for those that need this service. Objective 2: 80% of the clients who receive outpatient counseling services will show improvement in their mental health and well-being as indicated by improved acorn scores when comparing pre and post treatment scores. Objective 3A: by the end of year two, this project will host a total of 8 community engagement events (1/quarter x 2 years) to increase awareness of mental health service availability and decrease mental health stigma with a target audience of vulnerable populations (minority/economically disadvantaged communities). Objective 3B: by the end of year two, this project will add 500 key community referral sources who serve minority and economically disadvantaged communities to the agency CRM to increase referral pathways for children living in those communities.