Vermont project aware 2023 continues the collaborative partnership of the vermont department of mental health and the VT agency of education from aware 2018 and adds three new regional teams of…

Vermont project aware 2023 continues the collaborative partnership of the vermont department of mental health and the VT agency of education from aware 2018 and adds three new regional teams of local education agencies and their designated mental health agencies. Together, these state and local partners will develop sustainable infrastructure for school-based social, emotional, and mental health supports within the vermont multi-tiered system of support framework (vtmtss). VT aware will work intensively with three leas: barre unified union school district (buusd), southwest VT supervisory union (svsu), and caledonia central supervisory union (ccsu). Children's mental health services in each LEA catchment area are provided by: washington county mental health for buusd, northeast kingdom human services for ccsu, and united counseling services for svsu. Together these communities support 7,174 students in 20 schools. Students in VT are experiencing increased mental health concerns, especially students who identify as lesbian, GAY, bisexual, or transgender, and/or students who experience health disparities related to their race/ethnicity and struggle to access timely mental health supports. Vermont will establish statewide structures for the scale-up and sustainability of mental health and wellness supports within vtmtss throughout all districts. Goal 1: increase awareness of mental health, substance use, and CO-occurring disorders among school-aged youth. Goal 2. Increase the mental health literacy of individuals who interact with school-aged youth to understand and detect the signs and symptoms of mental illness, substance use/misuse, and CO-occurring disorders. Goal 3: promote and foster resilience building and mental health well-being for all school-aged youth. Goal 4: provide positive behavioral health supports; targeted services to those who need more support; and intensive services to those who need them. Goal 5: connect school-aged youth who may have behavioral health issues, including serious emotional disturbance or serious mental illness, and their families to needed services. Goal 6: increase and improve access to culturally relevant, developmentally appropriate, and trauma-informed school and community-based aware activities and services. To accomplish these goals, each LEA will form a district-community leadership team (dclt) responsible for the needs assessment and implementation plan. The dclt will use the vtmtss framework tools, informed by the interconnected systems framework for integrating mental health into tiered systems, to structure the needs assessment through data collection, system review, and initiative inventory. LEA's implementation plans will identify or strengthen the use of a universal social-emotional-behavioral screener; plan for continuous dclt review of data to inform vtmtss supports and services; update referral pathways that link students with necessary school-based and/or community mental health services; update or develop mous with community service providers; develop and implement workforce capacity-building training plan for mental health and suicide awareness/prevention; update crisis protocols to ensure an immediate response to student mental health/suicidal needs; and align crisis protocols with their existing school safety/ violence prevention plan. An advisory board, inclusive of student and family voices, will be established within the first six months to inform the project. Students and families in leas will have input on the efforts to strengthen their LEA's mental health and wellness supports. Awareness training will include youth mental health first aid (ymhfa), teen mhfa, and umatter suicide prevention training for students, school staff and community members. VT aware activities are expected to reach a 5-year total of at least 6,900 (YR1 400, YR2 1000, YR3 1500, YR4 2000, YR5 2000) students, teachers, school staff, families, and mental health and social services providers.