National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention

2007 Safe Schools/Healthy Students Grant Application Now Available
The SS/HS grant, available to local educational agencies, provides communities with federal funding to implement programs, curricula, and services that create safe school environments, promote healthy child development, and prevent youth violence and alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use. The 2007 Application Kit is now available at http://www.sshs.samhsa.gov/apply/kit.aspx.

Evidence-Based Intervention (EBI) Fact Sheet: Peers Making Peace
The National Center has published a new EBI Fact Sheet on Peers Making Peace, a peer-mediation program that aims to reduce violence and discipline referrals in schools by teaching students prosocial, peaceful conflict resolution skills. Through this program, students receive life and social skills training, conflict prevention and resolution training, and peer-led modeling and coaching. Learn more about Peers Making Peace at http://www.promoteprevent.org/documents/EBI/
Peers%20making%20peace.PDF.

To view all of our EBI Fact Sheets, please visit http://www.promoteprevent.org/publications/evidence_based/.

Updated Resource Page: Cultural Competence
Looking for new resources to help address cultural and linguistic diversity within your community? Visit our updated Resource page on Cultural Competence. This page provides links to useful Web sites, organizations, and publications that cover topics such as language needs of individuals seeking health care, mental health care needs of immigrant and refugee children, and early intervention practices that are sensitive to diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. To view the updated Resource page, please visit http://www.promoteprevent.org/resources/resource_pages/program_functions/
cultural_competence.htm.

Notes Available from the April Teleconferences
The National Center has posted notes and full audio recordings from the following April teleconferences:

This section summarizes the key findings from a current research study in the field of education, mental health, violence prevention, or youth substance abuse prevention. Research Notes are linked to the full report when available online.

Providing Culturally Competent Mental Health Services
A study by the Research and Training Center for Children’s Mental Health at the University of South Florida examined the research on child and family mental health services to understand how to support cultural and linguistic competence of mental health service provider organizations serving specific cultural populations. The study concluded that it is important to understand the historical and cultural experiences that shape particular groups’ perceptions of the mental health care system.

For example, although there is a lack of mental health services in rural American Indian communities, the historical experience of having children forcibly removed to boarding schools creates a resistance to sending children and adolescents to inpatient clinics outside of the area. Thus, it is important to alleviate the fears of children and families during intake, by, for example, allowing families to participate in the development of a service plan and incorporating American Indian ceremonies into critical aspects of this plan (such as a plan for returning the child to the family).

The study also recommended using strategies developed for and tested with specific ethnic populations to enhance service delivery, such as ethnically matching service providers and participants, which is effective in increasing utilization of services, length of treatment, and treatment outcomes for African Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and Latinos. (Note: There were no rigorous studies done on this strategy involving American Indians.)

The study warned against stereotyping ethnicities because particular communities (e.g., Latinos) differ by country of origin, immigration experience, traditional help-seeking behavior (e.g., using formal or informal providers), and preferences in ethnic matching of providers and clients.

For additional information, including findings on increasing access to, availability of, and utilization of mental health services by specific ethnic groups and factors to consider when designing strategies for particular groups and communities, see Examining the Research Base Supporting Culturally Competent Children’s Mental Health Services, by Mario Hernandez et al. Tampa: Research and Training Center for Children’s Mental Health at the University of South Florida, December 2006, which is available online at http://rtckids.fmhi.usf.edu/rtcpubs/CulturalCompetence/services/CultCompServices.pdf.

This section highlights just a few updates from the prevention field. Please go to http://library.promoteprevent.org for more news items and resources.

Everybody Ready for School: How Can We Ensure High Quality Early Childhood Programs?
Public Agenda has published a discussion guide outlining a framework for ensuring high-quality “school readiness” programs for children. The guide describes three approaches, (1) providing adequate and equitable funding for all communities, (2) creating standards and accountability, and (3) providing parents with helpful information so that they can choose among high-quality programs. The guide offers questions to consider for each approach as well as ways to move forward from community dialogue to actions that help address the issue. The full guide is available at http://www.publicagenda.org/pubengage/pdfs/school_readiness.pdf.

Suicide Fact Sheets by Population
Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC), in collaboration with the Suicide Prevention Action Network (SPAN) USA, has released a series of fact sheets on suicide across a number of U.S. populations, including American Indians/Alaska Natives, Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, black Americans, and Hispanic Americans. The fact sheets cover general statistics, mental health considerations, ethnic and cultural considerations, and protective factors against suicide for each population. To view these fact sheets, please visit http://library.sprc.org/browse.php?catid=116637.

Measuring Youth Program Quality: A Guide to Assessment Tools
To guide the decision-making process that occurs when choosing a quality assessment tool to evaluate youth program practices, the Forum for Youth Investment has published a guide that compares nine instruments that are often selected. While providing detailed descriptions of the assessment tools, the guide also highlights issues that should be considered when selecting and using each one. To access this guide, please visit http://www.forumfyi.org/Files/
Measuring_Youth_Program_Quality.pdf.

The Grant Opportunities page is updated regularly with new announcements of available public and private grant competitions. Here is just one of the listings you'll find:

Title: Richard Riley Award—Schools as Centers of Community for the 21st Century
Funder: The American Architectural Foundation and Knowledge Works Foundation
Description: The grant will go to a school that illustrates both community collaboration and school design excellence that helps promote student achievement.
Award: $10,000
Eligibility: Elementary and secondary public schools
Deadline: July 9, 2007
For more information: http://www.richardrileyaward.org/en/Index.asp

We regularly add to a detailed listing of conferences and events occurring within the National Center and across the nation. For example,

Date: June 23-26, 2007
Location: Denver, Colorado
Title: Reaching New Heights (ASCA's 2007 annual conference)
Sponsor: The American School Counselor Association (ASCA)
Description: This conference will bring together approximately 1,500 pre-kindergarten through post secondary professional school counselors, counselor educators, supervisors and graduate students. From educational sessions to networking events to pre-conference workshops to inspiring keynote speakers, ASCA’s conference helps professional school counselors across the country meet their professional development needs. Conference sessions allow attendees to take away solid, practical ideas they can put to work tomorrow, make valuable contacts in the school counseling field, and discover the latest techniques in school counseling.
Web site: http://www.schoolcounselor.org/content.asp?pl=325&sl=129&contentid=182