Adult and Child Health Awarded Funding to Expand and Develop Community Mental Health Workforce
Adult and Child Health (A&C) was recently awarded $750,000 in grant funding for three years by the Division of Mental Health and Addiction (DMHA) to enhance the local behavioral health workforce, improve accessibility to peer recovery services, and expand professional growth and development opportunities for Adult and Child Health employees. Funds will support A&C’s efforts in two separate ways: training and certification for Community Health Workers (CHW) and Certified Recovery Specialists (CRS) and the development of Career Pathways for A&C staff. Both initiatives link to A&C’s greater vision of cultivating equitable, caring communities, where every child, adult, and family have opportunities to live healthy, purposeful lives. The demand for Community Health Workers (CHW) and Certified Recovery Specialists (CRS) in Indiana far exceeds the number of available staff in the workforce. CHW and CRS certification courses often have limited openings and a six month or longer waitlist, creating a significant barrier for individuals seeking certification. DMHA funding will support A&C becoming its own training site, creating an additional resource for staff and people in the community to draw upon their personal experience in mental health recovery and/or their professional work experience at A&C as they look to advance their mental health career through certification. To raise awareness and interest in CHW and CRS certification as a career option, A&C will partner with local high schools, adult education centers, and other organizations to provide information to the public. Built-in scholarship money will be made available for behavioral health technicians and recovery specialists who want to take their skills further. “At A&C, we know that our employees are our greatest asset,” said Denise Amato, Executive Vice President of Operations. “This grant funding should help us attract and connect with a new wave of compassionate, mission-driven people who are interested in pursuing a career in community mental health.” In addition to expanding the certified health workers and peer specialist workforce, the DMHA grant award will be used to fund staff engagement, recruitment, and retention initiatives in A&C’s Career Pathways program, which promotes long-term growth opportunities for employees of Adult and Child Health. DMHA grant funding will support increased staffing, mentoring, and training resources so that A&C employees have access to the tools and support needed to reach their career goals. This heightened focus on career growth and development is one of several initiatives in place to promote the well-being of Adult and Child’s workforce, including financial assistance for employee continuing education, opportunities to serve on diversity-focused taskforces, and access to health and wellness staff-led self-care groups that are supported within the organization. A&C is honored to be one of only a few selected organizations from over 90 organizations who submitted proposals for the Behavioral Health Workforce Recruitment and Retention Innovation Grant Program. Both components of A&C’s planned use for grant funding will strengthen A&C’s workforce capacity, ultimately leading to better mental health services for persons in the community. Adult & Child Health is an accredited nonprofit primary care, behavioral health, and social services provider with multiple locations in central Indiana. We strive for caring communities, where every child, adult and family have the opportunities they need to live healthy, happy, productive lives. Learn more at www.adultandchild.org.
Adult & Child Health Gears up for Year Two of Kendrick Foundation Grant Funded Program Supporting Morgan County Schools
Adult & Child Health (A&C) is excited to announce a successful start to the second year of their partnership with Kendrick Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization that supports education and initiatives that improve the health and well-being of Morgan County residents. Kendrick Foundation awarded A&C over $540,000 of grant funding this year as part of a three-year commitment to support school-based and school-linked mental health services for Morgan County school-aged youth. During the first year of the program, A&C served nearly 200 students across Mooresville, Martinsville, and Monrovia school districts. With those students enrolled in services, A&C provided over 1,400 individual therapy sessions, 160 group therapy sessions, and completed 34 assessments with students experiencing a mental health crisis. Additionally, A&C provided teacher support through professional development, education, and group therapy services for interested staff. Beyond the school setting, A&C staff worked with more than 40 families of enrolled students as a link to clinical services and family therapy sessions. The partnership with Kendrick Foundation began its second year this July and has continued to be a well-received collaboration across the county. The impact to students, teachers, and families has improved school operations. “This has been a positive collaboration with A&C staff. The staff work to meet the needs of the whole child and desire to be part of the school team. The work done in the Positive Approach to Student Success (PASS) program and support has been very beneficial to this student group. We’re excited about the continued services and future opportunities for this program in Mooresville Schools,” said Windy McGowen, Mooresville County School District. The year-two initiatives for Adult & Child Health will include an increase in community outreach, caregiver support and training, teacher support and training, building connections across Morgan County, increased mental health awareness education, and continued service provision for more youth and families across Morgan County. “We have developed such a solid infrastructure across the county and are so excited to continue to offer mental health training and support, increase collaboration in each district, and thrilled to partner with others in the community to increase connection. We believe we can build on last year’s success to have an even better school year,” said Elizabeth Stirn, LCSW, Assistant Director of School-based Services. Adult & Child Health is an accredited nonprofit primary care, behavioral health, and social services provider with multiple locations in central Indiana. We strive for caring communities, where every child, adult and family have the opportunities they need to live healthy, happy, productive lives. For more information about Adult & Child Health programs, please contact Cate Porter, Marketing & Communication Manager, at 317-882-5122.
Adult & Child Health Receives Federal Funding to Expand and Optimize Telehealth Technology
Adult & Child Health (A&C) was awarded grant funding from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for healthcare technology to improve efficiency and access to care. Announced in early November, the FCC awarded Adult and Child Health and 74 other healthcare organizations grants through its COVID-19 Telehealth Program. As a part of the CARES Act, the COVID-19 program supports the efforts of health care providers to continue serving their patients by providing reimbursement for telecommunications services, information services, and connected devices necessary to enable telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Adult & Child Health was awarded $516,208 for laptops, tablets, Wi-Fi hot spots, a telehealth platform, and remote patient monitoring devices such as glucometers, otoscopes, stethoscopes, and blood pressure monitors. This allows providers to treat patients remotely and directly in the community from homeless shelters to schools – and to support treatment not only for COVID-19, but also for health care conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and chronic respiratory issues, among others. As a Federally Qualified Health Center Look Alike program, Adult and Child Health’s four family medicine clinics have been providing telehealth services since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Expansion of telehealth services funded by the FCC grant coincides with and complements a larger healthcare technology initiative as A&C moves to a new medical records system. In December 2021, A&C will switch to a new electronic medical record system (EMR), NextGen. The implementation of this industry leading EMR will lead to improved customer services, access, efficiency, and improved health outcomes. Working within NextGen, A&C providers will have access to a telehealth platform fully integrated within the patient medical records or seamless workflows and ease of use for both patients and staff. “We are very excited about this program. There is a lot of reach within this technology project. We’ll be able to better equip our patients to monitor their chronic conditions from home, our staff to provide high quality remote care. We’re also able to better support our community partners in homeless engagement projects and school-based telehealth services for parents,” said Kerri Lewis, Chief Information Officer at Adult & Child Health. “It’s very exciting because ultimately it improves the health of the patients who have serious chronic health conditions and need additional monitoring.” Adult & Child Health will utilize FCC grant funding to purchase new end user hardware, medical testing devices, waiting room kiosks, and remote monitoring technology. The NextGen EMR, with integrated telehealth capability, is scheduled to be implemented in early December and remote patient monitoring will be available for rollout in early 2022. Adult & Child Health is an accredited nonprofit primary care, behavioral health, and social services provider with multiple locations in central Indiana. We strive for caring communities, where every child, adult and family have the opportunities they need to live healthy, happy, productive lives. For more information about Adult & Child Health programs, please contact Tina Serrano, Director of Strategic Initiatives, at 317-882-5122.
Neighborhood Based Mental Health Project
Outreach Services to Minorities and Refugees Adult and Child Center is very excited to announce a grant award from the Indiana Department of Mental Health and Addictions to embed behavioral health staff into neighborhood based programs which are focused on serving minority populations around Greater Indianapolis. This multiple year project will embed staff in programs at Esperanza Ministries, BACI-Indy, and Catholic Charities starting January 2016. With the implementation of HIP 2.0 in Indiana, and the steady uptick in the minority populations in and around Indianapolis, Adult and Child Center is beginning to see an increase in the demand for behavioral health services from non-english speaking populations. “We are very excited to have great partners like BACI, Esperanza, and Catholic Charities on this project. Each of them are amazingly mission driven and focused on improving the general health and well-being of their consumers. This project is very unique and exciting because while we are embedding clinical staff in new cultures, we will also use Peer Specialist to bridge the language and cultural divide. A Peer Specialist is someone from a particular culture who is also well versed in the delivery of behavioral health services.” said Dan Arens, Director of Business Development at Adult and Child Center. This project is the first of many programs A&C hopes to implement in Central Indiana focused on providing increased access to behavioral health services. “A significant part of Adult and Child Center’s Neighborhood Based Mental Health plan involves better engagement of minority populations. A&C is proud to have partnered with 3 minority focused agencies in this proposal. The plan of operation involves developing a low cost model of engagement from within these minority communities. In order to break through generationally engrained cultural barriers and stigma around mental health and addictions, Adult and Child Center is proposing an innovative model. Through this model, Adult and Child Center will leverage both a full-time LCSW with special interest in supporting minority populations AND specially trained bi-lingual peer specialists from each partner agency culture to identify, engage, and support the populations targeted within this proposal. The goal of this project is to increase mental health service usage rates among targeted minority populations. The critical components of improving access to care include culturally sensitive engagement, relationship building, education, and warm hand-offs.”
