National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention

Peer-to-Peer Teleconference on Multisystemic Therapy (MST): May 25, 2006
On Thursday, May 25, 2006, from 1:00–2:00 p.m. ET, there will be a peer-to-peer teleconference on MST. This will be an opportunity to participate in a facilitated discussion about the successes and challenges of implementing and sustaining an MST program. To RSVP, please contact Emily Doerr at edoerr@edc.org or (617) 618-2321. Call-in information will be sent to all who RSVP. For more information, please visit the Events page.

Upcoming YVPP and TCE Sustainability Teleconference on June 15, 2006
Keeping Your Program Going: Strategies That Work, the fifth in a series of five YVPP/TCE sustainability teleconferences, will take place on Thursday, June 15, from 1:00–2:30 p.m. ET. Grantees will highlight and discuss successful strategies they have developed to sustain key elements of their programs. Registration information for the June 8 teleconference will be sent to invitees by e-mail. Please contact your Technical Assistance Specialist with any questions.

You can also view the materials from the first three sustainability teleconferences: Planning for Sustainability: Leaving a Legacy; Communicating for Sustainability; and Finding and Developing Foundation Funding and Strategies for Creating Revenue.

New Suicide Prevention Resources on PromotePrevent.org
Several new suicide prevention resources have been added to the PromotePrevent Web site. Two new Center briefs have been added: How Schools Can Prevent Suicide and Recognizing and Responding to the Warning Signs of Suicide: A Guide for Teachers and School Staff. In addition, a new resource page, titled Suicide Prevention in Schools, has been developed.

Upcoming Safe Schools/Healthy Students Regional Meetings
On behalf of the federal SS/HS partners, the National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention is sponsoring four regional SS/HS meetings this year in place of a national conference. The National Center is looking forward to hosting these three-day meetings that will bring your regions' sites together to work on improving mental health, law enforcement/juvenile justice and education partnerships, reaching diverse stakeholders, and sustaining successful programs. We will be introducing and using the Project Director's Resource Guide: From Start-Up to Sustainability during this working meeting.

Leveraging Partnerships in West Chicago
West Chicago Elementary School District #33
West Chicago, Illinois
SS/HS Grantee

We want to hear from you!
Send us your own Grantees at Work story. If you’ve developed a creative solution to a problem you’ve faced, come up with interesting ideas for programs or events, or successfully implemented strategies that you think would be useful for other grantees to hear about, please e-mail a brief description and your contact information to news@promoteprevent.org. You could be featured in an upcoming Grantees at Work story, and your experiences could help other grantees! It will help you get local publicity, too.
To read past Grantees at Work stories, go to
http://www.promoteprevent.org/grantees_at_work/.

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

New Resources on Healthy Child Development
What to Expect and When to Seek Help is a set of tools designed to help families and service providers support the healthy social and emotional development of children and adolescents. Four of the tools, each of which is designed to address a specific developmental stage (infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence), provide information about healthy child development and parenting and offer guidance on seeking help from local, state, or national resources. A tool to help service providers locate community-based services for families and create a referral network is also included. The tools were developed through a partnership between Bright Futures at Georgetown University and the National Technical Assistance Center for Children's Mental Health, with support from the Child, Adolescent, and Family Branch of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The tools are available at http://www.brightfutures.org/tools.

Fact Sheet Summarizes Key Findings on Youth Gangs
This Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) fact sheet summarizes findings from the 2004 National Youth Gang Survey and reports data on the number of gangs, gang members, and gang-related homicides in larger cities, suburban counties, smaller cities, and rural counties. The findings indicate that while gangs, gang members, and gang-related homicides are concentrated in larger cities, nearly 3,000 jurisdictions across the United States experienced gang activity in 2004. To read the fact sheet, go to http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/fs200601.pdf.

“Helping Youth Succeed Through Out-of-School Time Programs”
This resource, developed by the American Youth Policy Forum, provides information on out-of-school time (OST) programs and activities. OST programs occur after school, on evenings and weekends, and during the summer, and they are housed in a variety of locations, including schools. Evidence suggests a correlation between attending OST programs and various positive outcomes, including an increase in academic achievement, school attendance, time spent on homework, as well as better student behavior. In addition to reviewing the research on OST, this resource identifies characteristics of successful OST programs and provides recommendations for policymakers and practitioners. To read Helping Youth Succeed Through Out-of-School Time Programs, go to http://www.aypf.org/publications/HelpingYouthOST2006.pdf.

Looking for Funding? New Guide Provides Information on Federal Youth Development Programs
Published by America’s Promise, a coalition of communities, organizations, businesses, and individuals supporting youth development programs, the Guide to Federal Resources for Youth Development provides information on federal funds available to support youth development programs. The guide lists more than 100 federal programs from the departments of Agriculture, Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Corporation for National and Community Service. For each program, the guide includes a program description, contact information, populations served, program goals, activities and services offered, and information on the type of grant, grantee eligibility, and funding amount. Read the guide at http://www.americaspromise.org/partners/federal_funding_guidelines.pdf.

“Improving Educational Prospects for Youth in Foster Care: The Education Liaison Model”
This recent article from the May issue of Intervention in School and Clinic describes a collaborative effort among a child welfare agency, a local education agency, and a nonprofit law office to improve the educational outcomes of children in foster care. Foster children are a vulnerable population and are overrepresented in special education. The article includes information on program procedures and the role of the education liaison as advocate and problem solver, as well as evaluation data and strategies for managing problems associated with multiagency collaboration. For a copy of this article, e-mail news@promoteprevent.org.

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: Grants for At-Risk Children and Youth
Funder: The Louis R. Cappelli Foundation
Description: These grants provide funding for programs that assist at-risk children and youth in the areas of education and health and fitness. Education programs should focus on collaboration among agencies, school districts, and parents to address issues for at-risk youth and develop innovative educational solutions. Health and fitness programs should promote wellness through creative health programs or organized sports.
Award: Up to $25,000
Eligibility: Nonprofits with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status are eligible to apply.
Deadline: June 30, 2006
For more information: http://www.cappelli-inc.com/application.shtml

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

Date: June 14–16, 2006
Location: Baltimore, Maryland
Title: Community Schools: Creating the Conditions for Learning
Sponsor: Coalition for Community Schools
Description: The 2006 National Forum of the Coalition for Community Schools will highlight how community schools create the conditions for learning through changes in leadership, policy, systems, and practice. Topic areas include afterschool; community-based learning/service learning; local community school initiatives; family involvement; federal policy/No Child Left Behind; and youth participation and engagement.
Web site: http://guest.cvent.com/EVENTS/Info/Summary.aspx?e=13dd0
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