Catholic charities' pathways to mental health program - catholic charities, diocese of ST

Petersburg proposes to implement a comprehensive, coordinated and evidenced-based services program, entitled "pathways to mental health", to support the integration of behavioral health treatment and services, permanent housing and critical services for individuals, youth, and families with a serious mental illness (SMI), serious emotional disturbance (SED) or CO-occurring disorder (COD) who are experiencing homelessness or at imminent risk of homelessness. This application requests $455,155 Y1 with a total of five years being $2,377,992. The purpose of the proposed program is to provide a community based program to support those individuals that have lived on the streets or a place not meant for human habitat for over one year or three episodes in a four year period and have substance use disorders, serious mental illness, serious emotional disturbance, or CO-occurring mental and substance use disorders. The program is a means of empowering consumers to take control of their own recovery; provided a safe place where individual receive respect, encouragement, and hope that supports and strengthens their recovery with mental illness, addiction and / or trauma. The program will: 1) engage and connect the population of focus to behavioral health treatment, case management, and recovery support services; 2) assist with identifying sustainable permanent housing by collaborating with homeless services organizations and housing providers, including public housing agencies; and 3) provide case management that includes care coordination/service delivery planning and other strategies that support stability across services and housing transitions. Participants are identified through the homeless services intake system and prioritized through the needs assessment and severity ranking system incorporated into five county's homeless management information system. This program will serve 400 individuals annually who are homeless or chronically homeless on the path to housing. The program participants will be engaged in participating in developing and implementing their own wellness recovery action plan, linkages to health care and receive mental health treatment. The individual will be engaged for 6 months or more as program participant and/ or volunteers. The program is a community-driven resource that will promote recovery, increase independence, and encourage community inclusion for persons with CO-occurring disorders through education, consumer-run programming, support, and empowerment. Ccdosp serves as grant administrator and provider. Data collection, independent evaluation and mandatory contract reporting functions are accomplished through contracted evaluation services.