Funding Awarded for Flagler County Youth Behavioral Health Planning Project

PALM COAST, Fla. - Nov. 21, 2016 - PRLog -- Funding Awarded for Flagler County Youth Behavioral Health Planning Project

Palm Coast, FL – Stewart-Marchman-Act Behavioral Healthcare, in partnership with Flagler Cares, has been awarded a one-year assessment and planning grant from the Florida Department of Children and Families under the Criminal Justice, Mental Health and Substance Abuse Reinvestment (CJMHSA) Grant program.    The $71,023 grant award was matched by in-kind commitments from Flagler County Schools, Flagler County Board of County Commissioners, Flagler Cares, Halifax Health, The House Next Door and SMA.

The goal of the CJMHSA grant program is to provide funding to counties which they may use to plan for initiatives that increase public safety, avert increased spending on criminal and juvenile justice systems, and improve the accessibility and effectiveness of treatment services for adults and juveniles who have a mental illness, substance abuse disorders, or co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders, who are in, or at risk of entering, the criminal or juvenile justice systems.

After the year-long assessment and planning project, Flagler County will be eligible to apply for funding to implement strategies included in their strategic plan for an additional three years.

Why This Project is Important

Despite a decline in the number of youth involved in the juvenile justice system and similar declines in youth incarceration over the last decade, the prevalence of youth with behavioral health needs who are justice involved continues to increase. The number of at-risk youth is also increasing.  Planning grant funds will assist the community, school and justice systems to develop strategies to identify and effectively address the behavioral health needs of Flagler County youth. The yearlong planning process will lead to development of a grant application next year to implement the strategies that emerge from planning.    Flagler County used this planning and implementation process in recent years to improve its care for adults in behavioral health crisis.  This project will allow Flagler the opportunity to similarly improve its behavioral healthcare services for our children and youth.

Partnerships and Collaboration

Eighteen organizations pledged their formal support for the proposed project and have committed their staff time and resources to make the project a success.  These stakeholders, along with others, will be invited to participate in a Youth Planning Committee that will meet monthly during the assessment and planning project.

Children's Focus Group, Behavioral Health Consortium  Flagler Schools
Children's Home Society  Focus on Flagler Youth Coalition
Community Partnership for Children  Halifax Health
Department of Children and Families  Healthy Start of Flagler/Volusia Counties
Department of Juvenile Justice  PACE Center for Girls
Early Learning Coalition of Flagler/Volusia  SEDNET
Flagler County Board of County Commissioners  The House Next Door
Flagler County Juvenile Justice Council  thrive by five Collaborative
Flagler County Sheriff's Office  United Way of Volusia/Flagler

Key Project Components

The assessment and planning project will include several key components, including:

• The formation of a Youth Planning Committee to lead the project activities
• Monthly reports to Flagler County's Public Safety Coordinating Council
• Key Leader interviews and consumer focus groups to collect experiential input into the process
• Data collection to clearly understand the behavioral health care needs of Flagler County youth and to assess the current capacity of the service system
• A Sequential Intercept Mapping exercise to analyze the current juvenile justice and behavioral health systems in Flagler County
• Strategic Planning to develop proposed systemic and process improvements, capacity expansion, collaboration and partnerships

How You Can Get Involved

Recruitment of Youth Planning Committee members and data collection activities are anticipated to begin in the next two months.  Focus group sponsors will also be identified.  Please contact Carrie Baird at carrie@flaglercares.org to learn more and volunteer to participate.