National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention

The National Center would like to take this opportunity to wish you a very happy holiday season and all our best wishes for the New Year.

This month's newsletter highlights the topic of revenue development as a means for long-term sustainability. The National Center recently hosted a teleconference dedicated to the subject and one of our YVPP grantees, Annette Klinefelter, recounts how she successfully transitioned her program from grant supported to fee-for service.

New Online Event - beginning February
Would you like to learn how your school's prevention programs can not only reduce risk behaviors and promote emotional health, but improve academic outcomes for all students? Creating Safe, Supportive, and Successful Schools (C4S) is an innovative online event designed to do just that. C4S is a SAMHSA sponsored event presented by the National Center. For more information on this event and how you can participate, click here.

Center hosts teleconference on revenue development
The Center recently hosted "Revenue Development: Creating Earned Income", a teleconference on social enterprise. Social enterprise, also known as social entrepreneurship, can be an effective means to sustain non-profit work. The conference featured three experts in the field: Cynthia Massarsky, co-deputy director of the Goldman Sachs Foundation Partnership for Nonprofit Ventures at the Yale School of Management; Alfred Wise, managing director of Community Wealth Ventures; and Lori Kaplan, executive director of the Latin American Youth Center. Massarsky described the basics of social enterprise as well as its pros and cons. Wise gave examples of successful social enterprise ventures, and Lori Kaplan shared her first-hand experience of creating a money-generating enterprise to sustain her programs.

For a synopsis of the call, click here.

Girlfighting conference summary now available
As reported in the October 2004 issue of our ENewsletter, YVPP grantee Governor's Prevention Partnership of Connecticut held a one-day conference on girlfighting, featuring keynote speaker Lyn Mikel Brown, Associate Professor of Education and Human Development and Director, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Colby College in Maine.

The conference also featured the release of the Partnership's report, Preventing Girls' Violence and Aggression , and workshops on promising practices in the prevention of girls' aggression.

The conference summary includes detailed notes from

The summary report is available through the Conference Materials page.

Coalition for Community Schools National Forum to highlight new publication

The Coalition for Community Schools' National Forum, "Community Schools: The Time is Now", will feature a mini-plenary and book signing highlighting Community Schools in Action: Lessons from a Decade of Practice. The book describes the community school model and experience in ten New York City Public Schools. The mini-plenary will include many of the book's contributors, including Jane Quinn and Joy Dryfoos.

The National Forum will be held March 9-11 in Chicago, Illinois. For registration and agenda information, visit the Coalition's website at: http://www.communityschools.org/.

Upcoming January Event: DJ Ida, executive director of the National Asian-American Pacific Islander Mental Health Association (NAAPIMHA) will host a teleconference in late January discussing best practices for adaptation and sustainability for programs targeted to Asian-Pacific Islander communities as well as how best to present findings to the funding community. Please check the promoteprevent.org website for the exact date and time for this event.

Fee-for-service: One grantee's roadmap for sustainability
Annette Klinefelter
Girls Initiative Network, Portland, Oregon
YVPP Grantee

The Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) is pleased to announce the release of "Practices in Suicide Prevention," a collection of fact sheets describing many of the well known suicide prevention practices, including summaries of evaluation design and outcomes when available. Nationally recognized experts in suicide prevention were involved in assembling this repository and helping to assure the reliability and usefulness of the information for decision-makers. "Practices in Suicide Prevention" is available for reading and downloading on the SPRC website at http://www.sprc.org/whatweoffer/ebp.asp.

Obesity in young children: Impact and intervention
This Research Brief from the National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) summarizes three studies by RAND Health on the relationship of being overweight to school performance, behavior problems, and physical education in kindergarten and first grade. It also highlights the health and economic implications of childhood obesity and public initiatives to address the issue. The NIHCM Research Brief is available online at http://www.nihcm.org/OYCbrief.pdf.

Using office referral records in school violence research: Possibilities and limitations
Featured in the November issue of Journal of School Violence, this article examines the collection and use of office referrals to learn about school misbehavior and aggression. The authors identify sources of error in the collection and use of referrals. They go on to explain the importance of considering how office referral data indicate how school discipline systems are functioning. Guidelines are provided for utilizing disciplinary data for school safety and school policy planning.
For the complete text, please contact news@promoteprevent.org.

Health, Mental Health, and Safety Guidelines for Schools: Online resource
Health, Mental Health and Safety Guidelines for Schools is an online compendium intended for use by school administrators and others who play a role in the assessment, planning, advocacy, or improvement of school health and safety programs. Website visitors can compare the recommended Guidelines to their existing school policies and set priorities for future action. Topics include overarching school health and safety issues, family and community involvement, health and mental health services, health and safety education, physical education, and social environment.
To access this website, go to http://www.nationalguidelines.org.

The Grant Opportunities page http://www.promoteprevent.org/resources/grant_opportunities/ is regularly updated with new announcements of available public and private grant competitions.

We regularly add to a detailed listing of conferences and events occurring within the Center and across the nation. Please visit the Events page for listings.