Improving outcomes for at-risk youth and young adults - the project for lakes regional mhmr center, DBA lakes regional community center, "improving outcomes for at-risk youth and young adults", will…

Improving outcomes for at-risk youth and young adults - the project for lakes regional mhmr center, DBA lakes regional community center, "improving outcomes for at-risk youth and young adults", will provide a pathway for our agency to further meet the need in the underserved area of rural northeast texas. Lakes regional was awarded the ccbhc-e (expansion) grant in april 2020 and obtained texas ccbhc certification in december 2020. At the time lakes regional concentrated on utilizing the samhsa funds to aid our agency in implementing a rural assertive community treatment (act) team, expanding our mobile crisis outreach team (mcot), and improving upon our model for care coordination, which impacted most of the individuals served. With this grant, the proposed initiatives will address needs identified by a recent needs assessment administered by lakes regional, and incorporate needs identified by other community providers. The target populations for our proposed projects will be adults with a serious mental illness (SMI) and youth with a serious emotional disturbance (SED). As we move forward in our efforts to "improve and advance" as a ccbhc, lakes regional proposes an increase of prevention and/or early intervention services to address the increased challenges youth and young adults are facing with issues such as substance use, trauma, increased suicidality and limited access to healthcare. For the SED population, lakes regional proposes two pilot programs for youth ages 10-17. The first program will focus on education and prevention, along with intervention, for substance use issues. These services will be available at the greenville, texas location. The other pilot will be located at the paris, texas clinic and will focus on addressing youth in crisis through mobile response and stabilization services. This program will utilize a combination of staff that specializes in both youth and crisis services, along with involvement from a certified family partner. The goal identified for these programs are: diversion from juvenile justice, hospital diversion, and decreased substance use. In addressing the needs of young adults, ages 18-30, lakes regional will focus efforts on improving their social determinants of health through early identification of potential health risk, assisting them with connection to primary care services through care coordination, and connecting them with any additional needed services such as crisis, act, CO-occurring disorders (COD) or peer services. The goals associated with serving young adults are hospital and jail diversion and improving social determinants of health. Lakes regional will serve 1500 unduplicated individuals over the four years of the grant.