H79SM086142

Project Florida Smarts (School Mental Health Assessment, Response, and Training for Suicide Prevention) - Summary: Project Smarts is an innovative prevention model that will facilitate youth suicide prevention and early intervention strategies through a multi-system and interconnected approach across multiple delivery systems of care, including middle and high schools and community behavioral health agencies. The aim is to reduce the suicide rate, decrease mental health risk, and build sustainable prevention services to ultimately improve equity in access to high-quality behavioral healthcare in schools in Florida.

Project activities will utilize cutting-edge suicide prevention and trauma-informed training models to integrate universal screening for mental health, safety planning, care coordination services, and post-emergency care. School-based prevention strategies will be implemented in three large school districts (Pasco, Pinellas, and Miami-Dade County) that will bring together mental health providers with a data-based linkage to community providers, improving efficacy and equity in access to behavioral healthcare.

Population(s) to be served: Youth (10-24) that primarily attend middle and high schools and who obtain services from youth-serving agencies in three school districts. Eight schools per district, with a total of 24 schools, will participate in the project. The three school districts collectively serve over 375,000 youth across urban, suburban, and rural schools. Participating schools will serve a highly diverse population across various demographic, gender, sexuality, language, and income variables.

In Florida, suicide death rates have steadily increased for youth aged 15-24, with a 13% increase over the course of the last five years. Intentional self-injurious behaviors amongst youth also increased since 2019, with a total of 35,965 youth (<18 years) involuntarily committed to exam for risk of self/others.

Strategies/Interventions: Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) training for adult and youth, LINC2LIFE safety planning training, LINC care coordination training, suicide risk assessment & management training, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) training, universal mental health screening and suicide risk assessment for students, Pillars of Postvention for Suicide Events Toolkit (PPT), and LINC care coordination intervention.

Goals:
Goal 1: Improve culturally responsive suicide care practices within and between schools and community providers via the adoption of suicide prevention policies, clinical pathways, safety planning, and coordinated service referral and linkage processes.
Goal 2: Increase capacity of school and affiliated community personnel to recognize mental health problems that may lead to increased suicide risk of students, including youth of diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, through the implementation of evidence-based adult gatekeeper training.
Goal 3: Enhance the safety and crisis response system between targeted schools, mobile response teams, and community mental health care to ensure timely and coordinated assessment of suicide risk, crisis intervention, safety planning (including lethal means restriction), and follow-up services for at-risk youth.
Goal 4: Increase implementation of evidence-based early suicide intervention strategies to improve capacity to assess, manage, treat, and follow-up with at-risk youth.
Goal 5: Incorporate evidence-based youth suicide gatekeeper training for students to connect suicidal peers to mental health professionals in schools.
Goal 6: Integrate a multi-tiered, multi-faceted approach to mental health screening of youth for suicide risk.
Goal 7: Provide recovery-oriented postvention and crisis support to schools and families of youth who have attempted or recently died by suicide.

Number of individuals served: 240 school and community mental health providers to receive trainings, 1680 teachers to receive gatekeeper training, 2880 youth to receive gatekeeper training.

University Of South Florida

NOT APPLICABLE

93.243 - Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Projects of Regional and National Significance

Division of Grants Management [HHS - SAMHSA]

Tampa, Florida 336205650 United States

Single Zip Code

Garrett Lee Smith State/Tribal Youth Suicide Prevention and Early Intervention Grant Program (SM-22-003)

COVID-19 $2,873,430 (83%) percent of this Project Grant was funded by COVID-19 emergency acts including the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
Amendment Since initial award the total obligations have increased 399% from $696,820 to $3,480,059.