Mental and Behavioral Health Webinar: Session 4 - Utilizing Resources from HHSC

001Good morning and welcome to our mental health and behavioral health webinar session on utilizing resources from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to support student mental health. On behalf of TEA, we are really glad that you took time out of your day to join us. Before we get started, I'd like to hand it over to our new director of mental and behavioral health um at TEA to introduce yourself. Dr. Watson. Good morning everyone. We want to welcome you to our webinar today. Um I am glad to join the team, this mental health and wellness team here at TEA. You have a great support and they have produced a great webinar for you today with information that you will be able to utilize. So we thank you all for coming today. Um I thank you

002all for welcoming me um to this position and as I bring a wealth of knowledge and mental health and um also with counseling. So I want to thank you all for coming today and I will stop talking so you can enjoy this great information. Thank you Dr. Watson. So in today's session we're going to learn um how to implement available resources from our Texas Health and Human Services Commission in order to strengthen school mental health systems. So these supports will include resources that address interventions for students, training needs for staff, and mental health promotion for the community. So today's session is going to be led by our colleagues at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. So our hope today is that you can take something away from this session and then use it in

003your school community. So this session is being recorded and the recording and the supported resources for this webinar will be posted on our school mental healthtx.org webinar following today's session. So as we start today I want to remind everybody that before we end our session today we're going to ask you to complete a post survey. So part of our mental health work here at TEA is funded by Projectaw Aware Texas and that's a grant through the um Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration or SAMA. So our grant requires that we um give a brief post survey after our training sessions. Um so we really appreciate your support with this um requirement and again that won't happen until the end of the webinar um session. So I do want to um remind everybody that today's

004session is in a zoom webinar format which means participants cannot show their video or share their audio. So we will have time today for audience Q&A with our presenters. So to ask questions please use the Q&A function and we're going to do our best to get them answered. Um we will not be able to respond to the raised hand function. um want you also to be uh familiar with the the chat function that we have um below. We're going to be adding some resource links into the chat for you um as we get started and then throughout our time together at the end of the webinar. That's where you're going to find the um the survey uh that we just talked about. All right. So, our last piece of housekeeping is a reminder that we

005will provide 1.5 CPE credits to educators um for today's webinar for those who attend the whole session. So, a CPE certificate will be sent within one week to the email address that you registered with. And this is the only way to get your certificate. So, we will not provide a CPE from TEA for the recordings. Um, if you did not receive your certificate, check in your spam or your drunk folder because sometimes it does get put there. So, with that, um I Oh, sorry, Ashton. With that, I am going to um pass it over to my colleague Ashton who's going to talk a little bit about how we um meet into the mental health framework. Yes, ma'am. Thank you so much, Tammy. Uh I am really excited to uh introduce our friends here from the

006Texas Health and Human Services Commission coming up here soon. Uh, as our mental health and wellness team have had a chance to talk to folks and school leaders all across the state, one of the things we always learn and always hear about is that, you know, school districts and the school mental health staff in those districts can't do it themselves. Uh, it takes a village to really have that uh multi-tier system of support for all of our kiddos in in our state of Texas. and our friends from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission are going to do a really great job today of just showcasing some statewide and regional supports that are available to to school districts and and campuses. So, I'm really excited again for uh our Texas Health and Human Services Commission

007colleagues to to really showcase the resources that they have and and the uh supports that are offered to school districts all across our state. And to really showcase that, I do want to talk about how today's session and the resources that our colleagues at HHSC will be sharing today, how valuable they will be for implementing the Texas school mental health framework. And just a quick review of the framework, uh, as we look at the schoolhouse that represents that multi-ter system of support approach to planning school mental health services and supports. And then as we take a a a journey down those steps and into those stepstones, uh those are the ways that we identify the key domains and practices for establishing a quality school mental health system. And then finally, as we take a look

008up into the clouds above that schoolhouse, uh those are the components or the areas of school mental health that was established by uh Texas Education Code 38.351. And that particular piece of statute requires LEAs to address each area of school mental health by developing practices, procedures, and professional development opportunities. And in today's session, the resources from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, uh, local mental health authorities, prevention resource centers, regional suicide support centers, and also various models implemented throughout the state will address the areas of school mental health circled in the clouds that you see there, and also the pathway to quality school mental health identified and circled within the stone. So again, we really are excited to have our health and human services uh commission colleagues come in and really share the resources

009that will support you all in implementing the Texas school mental health framework. And now without further ado, I will turn it over to our first uh set of presenters from uh HHSC uh the mental health programs and children's mental health team. Uh they will discuss some available resources and models to support school mental health implementation. you so much Ashton, Tammy, and Dr. Watson for having us here today. We're so excited to share some of these really important resources with you all. So, just thank you all so much for being here. Um, give me a moment while I share my screen. Okay. Does that look good, Ashton? Everything good on y'all's side? Yes, ma'am. It's perfect. All right. Excellent. Um, so my name is Sarah Fiorenza. I am the systems of care director with HHSC with

010Children's Mental Health. Um, so I'm going to kick us off today, but then I also have some of my amazing colleagues here as well that are going to walk us through some other resources. So I'll start off with the system of care overview. Um, then we'll hear um an overview related to some of the services available through our local mental health and behavioral health authorities. We'll hear a little bit about the TRR, Texas Resiliency and Recovery Model. Um, a great overview of mental health first aid. and then a bit about our behavioral health partnership program overview. So, as Ashton mentioned, tons of information and resources and we're so excited to be here with you all today. So, we're going to start in a little bit of a lofty place. We're going to talk a little

011bit about theory and framework. Um, so some of you may be familiar with system of care. Um, but system of care is really a national framework in philosophy. It was established over 25 years ago and the key is really about transforming child and youth serving systems. Um so we all know that mental health challenges they don't impact just one part of a child's life. Um they in fact they impact every aspect and they also impact a child's family. Um, we also know that comprehensive individual or family support cannot be obtained from just one place or just one source. And that is really why a system of care approach is so essential when we're talking about children's mental health. Um, so when I say system of care, what I'm talking about is really this approach to

012coordinating efforts by um, all of the agencies, organizations that exist in a community, but also working directly with the children and youth that we're serving to ensure that services and supports are accessible, they're appropriate, and most importantly, that they lead to positive outcomes for everyone. Um, systems of care also have to be emergent. They have to be dynamic and they really have to respond to a local environment. We've seen everything that's happened in the last five years, right? This is a different world than um we inhabited in 2020. Um the the challenges that our children are facing are different. We've had the pandemic. We have social media. Um, so part of that system of care approach is really being responsive to what we're seeing um, in our communities and really being able to adapt to

013that. Also, we support system of care because we know that it works, right? Um, again, this is a national framework. We have a lot of data. We know that it really decreas decreases behavioral and emotional symptoms, decreases suicide rates, substance use, juvenile justice involvement. Um and and what does it do for us? It increases school int attendance. It improves grades. It creates more stable living situations. Um families report reduced caregiver strain, improve family functioning. Um so we know that this works. So at the foundation of the system of care approach is really these values familydriven, youthguided and community-based. So families are really at the heart of a system of care approach. So we know that supporting strong family relationships is really key to child serving systems that work well. um parents, guardians, caregivers, the insights

014of these individuals really need to be front and center in every aspect of a system of care. Um and that really even includes policym when we are putting together the design of a program when we're we're delivering services. Um we really want to center the voices of families. The same with youth youth voice youth voice is also fundamental. Um, authentic youth engagement really allows youth to be more directly involved in the services that they receive. Um, and we know that it really allows youth to have a say over what happens in their own lives. But it's also a two-way street, right? It also benefits communities because youth and young adults have really important information about the services and supports that they've received, what works, what doesn't work. um and to be able to feed that

015back in and then um you know really be adaptive and improve those services and supports um that really benefits everyone. So really acknowledging that family and youth are really experts in their lived experience is really central to our system of care approach. And then finally community based, right? We all know that we want to be able to support children and youth within their own communities. That's always our goal. Oops. Next slide. So then you'll see here really similar language. Um the purpose and goal of our system of care. We really want to ensure that all Texas children and youth have access to highquality mental health care that again is familydriven, youthguided, community- based, and sustainable. Um, and the goal is how do we strengthen the collaboration both at the state and the local level to

016ensure we have a really robust and seamless network of systems and supports that work for children and youth. Okay, so now kind of a little bit on the wonky side, but important to know that system of care is actually in our state statute. Um, so we do have some we have a statutory framework that essentially says that we should implement system of care at the local level and that we should work across the child serving agencies to really do this work. And then you'll see here in the next slide, oops, sorry about that. Um, we have a memorandum of understanding across all of the child serving agencies. So, Health and Human Services Commission, Department of State and Health Services, Department of Family and Protective Services, TEA, Texas Juvenile Justice Department, um, as well as Tacoma.

017So all of us working together to really ensure that we are incorporating the system of care values and framework into the work that we're doing as we're serving children and youth across the state. So now kind of coming down from that lofty space talking a little bit more about what are we doing now in schools and talking a little bit more about some of the services that we are able to provide. Um, I wanted to talk to you all a little bit about a grant that we currently have from SAMA. So, as I mentioned, we have we have the state statute, but we don't have any state funding for this work. So, we've been really strategic and we've been able to um get some grants from SAMA, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,

018um, several iterations of this grant over the last 10 to 15 years. The current grant that we're working on, as you'll see, it started in 2021. Um, we have about six months left, but this grant has really been focused on increasing access to school-based mental health services. Um, and including youth peer and family peer support. So, we work closely with the Texas Institute for Excellence in Mental Health at UT, Time, and then we've also partnered with um three local mental health authorities. We partner with integral care, emergency health network and becon valley and then they have developed memorandums of understanding with schools in their district. So um integral care works with mayor del valley flurville ISD emergence is working in Katio ISD and then pan valley is working in poolvilles and springtown ISD currently. Um,

019and what that looks like is they these school-based teams have really worked with the schools. They've developed a referral pathway and then they're able to provide services and supports on site within the school. Um, and that can just be really helpful for students to have um, you know, that counselor that's there, the school-based interventionist um, and to be able to receive these peer services as well um, has been really really impactful. So, um, and then if there are needs that exist that the school-based team is not able to meet, they are able to refer to, um, you know, within the community to make sure that they're able to get those needs met as well. And then at this point, um, our goal is to serve 375 children and youth. Um, at this point, our the

020data is a little there's a little bit of a lag, but as of the third year of the grant, um, we had served 224 children. Um and then we have seen positive outcomes. So for the data folks out there, we use information from the NOMS. That's our national outcome measurement survey. That's something that is required by SAMA. And then we also um use the pediatric symptom checklist. And then just a little bit more about the peer supports that are provided. As I mentioned at the beginning, really this idea of youth voice, family voice, how do we ensure that the work that we're doing is really youth and family guided and peer support is one piece of that. So, um, that was something that was really novel about this grant was being able to provide team-

021based care within the schools, but to include the certified family partner and the youth peer support specialist. Um, and just to clarify on the youth peer support specialist, I think sometimes people can hear that. um and be a little uncertain what that means. When we say youth peer support, it's a young adult um and they are providing peer support to the child or the youth within the school. Um but they are an individual that identifies as having mental health challenges and are really able to support the person from that perspective. So this isn't clinical. that's really this just this idea of being able to talk to somebody that's really relatable um where they might not always feel comfortable talking to the counselor or the therapist in the same way. And um we've seen that the

022peer relationship can really help um impact kids because it's just something that they don't really have otherwise. So um that was really we were really excited that we were able to include this in our grant and again it's very much aligned with our system of care values and approach. So moving on from there I just also wanted to talk about two quick things that we also are able to do through our grant. Um so we have something called um children's mental health acceptance day. So May is mental health awareness month but we also really like to commemorate children's mental health acceptance day. Um, we have an annual event that we hold in Austin. Um, we have one coming up on April 26 for any of you all that would like to attend. It's at the

023Boys and Girls Club of Austin um, campus. It's from 10 to 1. I can also share the information after. Um, but it's really just a way to create some, it's, you know, creating creating awareness, helping to eradicate stigma, um, and really just create some positive feelings around discussions related to mental health, um, as well as providing resources in the community, um, to to families that could benefit from them. And then similarly, we're able to have our mental health creative arts contest. Some of you um, might be familiar with that. It's just a really beautiful thing that we're able to do. Um, it just closed. So, it closed on March 1st, but this is something that we do every year. It opens on November 1st. So any way that you all as, you know, districts and

024schools can really amplify that, we would we would love that because again, this is just a way that we really help um kind of raise that awareness related to mental health um and get rid of some of that stigma so that we can feel, you know, kids can really feel comfortable talking about some of these pieces. So um that's something really special that we're able to do. And I think that might be my last slide. All righty. So, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Will Terry, our children's mental health director. Sarah, I appreciate it. It's a pleasure to be here with everybody today. My name is Will Terry. I'm a uh clinical social worker and I'm the children's mental health services director and I'll be talking to uh all of us

025today about um local mental health authorities, local behavioral health authorities and the Texas resilience uh and recovery model of care. So we'll start with this slide which just gives a brief overview of um kind of core LMHA uh services and kind of their target population. Um as an aside uh LMHAs or local mental health authorities also sometimes they're referred to as community centers or local behavioral health authorities. They act as um essentially political subdivisions of the state. Um and there's 39 of these local mental health uh authorities local behavioral health authorities as established state law. Um the responsibilities are kind of twofold. Um they are responsible for planning and coordinating mental health policy and resources in their uh catchment areas and sometimes at a state level. Um and they also are designated to serve as

026a provider of last resort for community mental health services in their in their regions. Typically the uh LMHAs and LBHAs do this by contracting with providers and coordinating with multiple entity entities including schools um uh federally qual federally qualified health centers and and sometimes law enforcement agencies as well. Um if we could go ahead and go on to the next slide. When it comes to eligibility, uh this is kind of what's set for in our eligibility determinations, meeting financial criteria, which is based on the uh being within a certain percentage of the federal poverty level. Um and also then qualifying for services as determined by the uniform assessment process. All right, we can go to the next slide. This is a a handy map that shows um the different regions uh that the local mental

027health authorities are responsible for. So any youth or adult who's in one of these regions who is seeking um public mental health services could access one of the local mental health authorities you know reflected in this map here based on what's in their region. Uh so for the region where where I live um you can see which mental health authority covers u Travis County which would be um uh integral care. All right, if we could go on to the next slide. The TRR model or the Texas uh resilience and recovery model. So this is the delivery system um assessment system and uh provision of service system that the state uh uses for u delivery of services. It's a framework for establishing eligibility for receiving services. It's a also a framework for providing a recommended level

028of care uh and also for the for HHSC to deliver guidance about um how LMHAS and LBHS make a level of care determination. Part of the TRR model is dependent on what we call the CANS or the child's and adolescent needs and strengths assessment. Um this is typically delivered every 90 days. um and it helps inform the clinician and the clinical team providing the um kind of intake or update assessment as to what level of care might make sense and then they utilize their own clinical judgment and insight to make a final level of care uh recommendation. uh it does require um certification and standardized training to administer. This process which is part of the TR model of care um does uh kind of rely on um gathering some basic information such as the reason

029for presenting for services, demographic information, family history, u early childhood information, u risk assessment to help determine if crisis services are needed. Um and it does include you know clinical personal and historical questions about uh about a child about a family system about symptoms. Uh so it's something to uh take into consideration that it does involve the the disclosure of what could be you know uh personal and activating information. So just some information on the front end about that. If uh we could go to the next slide. So this very busy graphic shows the different levels of care that are within the TRR model for for youth seeking services at a local mental health or local behavioral health authority. Um there's a there's a fairly wide range of uh levels of care and the kind

030of uniform assessment process that I was talking about earlier helps clinicians um uh get a recommendation based on clinical thresholds within the assessment as to what level of care might make sense for the youth receiving services. And you know different levels of care within the system have different contractual performance requirements within HHSC. So they they uh uh have performance metrics that are geared around um the type of symptoms and the type of population that's intended to fall into each level of care for treatment. So it's a very busy graphic uh but nonetheless I think it does a pretty good job of capturing what uh would be considered the continuum of services that's available within local mental health authorities. That being said, this graphic isn't exhaustive and doesn't cover the entirety of all mental health services

031provided by LMHAs. There are many services that they provide that are adjacent to HHS contracted services or run in parallel based on other inter interlocal resources like city or county resources. Um, all right. I think that's it for this part of the slide. Uh, I'll go ahead and pass it on to our next presenter. Thank you. Thank you, Will. Good morning, y'all. My name is Jandela Fon Garcia and I am the mental health first aid coordinator here at HHSC. And so, I'm going to be talking to y'all about mental health first aid today. So, um, mental health first aid, much like CPR, is an evidence-based training, and it teaches participants how to recognize signs and symptoms of mental health and substance use disorders. And so, we might think of mental health first aid similarly to

032just regular first aid or CPR, and that is the initial help given to people when they're they're struggling, in this case, with mental health or substance use concerns. The program builds an understanding of impact and we talk a lot about stigma and how to reduce stigma um throughout our communities. That's a big big big part of the program. We also review common treatment. So what type of treatment providers are out there and what type of treatment is available? Sometimes it's self-help skills or support groups. And we also talk about kind of more professional help services like therapists and psychiatrists. I see a comment that they somebody really liked the youth mental health first aid course. So great. I'm so glad to hear that. Um mental health first aid does provide a five-step action plan to

033follow and that's sometimes what makes it different from other programs because we're telling you exactly what to do in certain situations, different things to say and we'll talk a little bit more about that in a little bit. And our goal is really to make sure that our communities are happier, healthier, and safer by getting as many people trained as possible. Because if somebody is struggling in your home, in your faith community, at your um job, we want them to have contact with somebody who's taken this program and knows what to do and how to support them. Um so that last bullet is written a little bit lengthy, but the goal is to have as many people trained as possible. So people in the communities have support. Um you can go to the next slide. So

034mental health first aid started in Texas in legislation in 2013. So that legislative session they they put it in statute and we started our first trainings in 2014. So actually last year we trained 40,325 people in mental health first aid. was the most people we've ever trained and half of that were from the school districts. So really excited about how it's impacting the schools. HHSC contracts with all 39 local mental health and behavioral health authorities to provide mental health first aid. And there's three different curriculums that we that we provide. So there's the adult curriculum and that's for adults, so people 18 and older. um and they learn how to support other adults who are having mental health or substance use concerns. Then there's the youth mental health first aid uh course and it teaches

035adults how to support children and youth. So this is a course somebody said they they took it in the chat. Um the youth mental health first a course is for people like teachers and other people who work in schools um who work with youth so they can support youth better. And then there's a teen program. So, I don't want to mix it up with the youth. Um, Teen Mental Health First Aid teaches students in high school or ages 14 to 18 how to support other teens. And this is the newest program. What's unique about it is that it does emphasize the importance of including a trusted adult because we don't want it all on the teens. We know it's a lot to support somebody who's struggling. And so in order for your organization, agency, school

036to offer teen mental health first aid, adults, some of the adults there have to take the youth program to make sure we have those trusted adults on the campus and the agencies etc. Next slide please. Let's talk a little bit about how mental health first aid is different from other mental health training programs. I do want to mention again that it is an evidence-based program. There's lots of research that has gone into showing that this is an effective program, that it works. It's also taught by a live instructor. So, there's three different ways you can take mental health first aid. You can take it completely in person, you can take it completely virtual, or you can take it um in a blended format. Um if it's virtual, it's like this like over Zoom or Teams.

037And so you still get the opportunity to interact with a live instructor, um, have your questions answered, get some feedback, which makes it different than just the module-based training. And it provides hands-on experience through real life scenarios. So, we're practicing different scenarios and things that we might say and do. We're practicing that five-step action plan. We're practicing those really hard things like asking, "Are you thinking about killing yourself?" And that way you're practicing it in the class and you're saying these words before you're out in the world having to say them because it can be really uncomfortable. So we're giving you that opportunity to to practice it in a really safe space. We also provide resources in your local area. So, when you take the class, your instructors will provide you with a resource sheet

038or a packet that goes over what mental health and substance use resources and self-help resources are available in your community because part of the five-step action plan is supporting people to get treatment if that's what they need. So, you need to know what's available. We're not expecting you to go out and research this yourself. And we also go over like national resources. But I think the most important part is that that local resource uh sheet and then it provides a three-year certification with a manual. So after you finish the course, you are a mental health first aer. You have that certificate for three years. It looks great on your resume. Um sometimes people look for that. And then I'll also mention if you're in Texas in the school system, you can get double CPEs for

039taking mental health first aid. So when you any of the face-to-face interaction, so the inerson course you get double CPEs for the total amount of hours. In the virtual course and blended course, it's for the amount of time that you're interacting with a live instructor. And then you also get like the single hour CPEs for the online portion, which is about two hours. And then the the inperson or or live like this, you get your double CPEs. I'm a therapist. says, "I have to get CUS." I know how hard it is to take time off and get those and so to get double CPEs, I think that's so important to mention. Next slide, please. So, why is the youth version in particular important? Since I know that y'all um work with youth, we're going to

040talk about this a little bit. We know that substance use starts really early in adolescence or young adulthood. Oh, I lost my slides. So, so early intervention is critical. We know that um the earlier somebody gets treatment, the better the treatment outcomes. And so, we want to intervene and and give that support as early as possible. We know about half of us adolescence, which is a lot, have struggles with mental health. And so, again, we want to intervene as early as possible. And because we're not taught in schools like what to say, how to approach mental health, it's good to to to have those words to to learn about that. Suicide is a leading cause of death among adolescents. And we want to learn how to recognize those signs and symptoms as well as practicing,

041like I said earlier, the hard questions. Are you thinking about suicide? Are you thinking about killing yourself? Um, and the importance of asking those questions. We know youth, especially young youth, can lack the vocabulary and they don't really know how to explain what's happening. We might hear that they have a stomach ache when really they're experiencing anxiety. And so we want to learn what else to to be looking for. And then sometimes it can be difficult to distinguish between what's typical adolescent behavior and what is indicating a mental health concern. Um we are all teenagers once, right? And so we remember at some point when we're teens, our parents become not cool. They're not cool at all. So we might isolate in our rooms from them. We not might not want to talk to them,

042hang out with them. Um but that's pretty normal. Now, if you have a teenager who's also isolating from their friends, not engaging in in hobbies or activities like they used to, then that might be something we need to look deeper into. And so for those of you that are at schools, y'all are in a unique situation to see these adolescents in their social their social environments and to be able to to see some of these signs um that they're maybe needing some more support. You can go to the next slide. And then one more thing that I do want to mention is that uh I'm sure a lot of y'all have have heard about House Bill three from last legislative session and the requirements are that school personnel who work regularly with students um take

043an evidence-based mental health training program. So mental health first aid meets all of those criteria in the House Bill 3 rules. Um, so I just wanted to mention that as well. And if you want to take a class, if you're interested, you can contact the mental health first aid outreach worker at your local mental health or behavioral health authority. Um, on this slide, you'll be able to click a map and it'll open up, show the state of Texas. You can click on your um, county and see who your outreach worker is and email them or or call them. They are the most passionate group of people I've ever worked with in my entire life. they really care and they will be happy to talk to y'all about how to how to get registered for a

044class. So, thank y'all for listening to me today and I'm going to turn it over to Ivonne next. Uh, good morning everybody. My name is Ivonne Rivas. Um, I oversee the behavioral health partnership program. Um, this program was created to bridge the gap between the local mental health authorities and the school districts. Uh my staff are located at the educational service centers and they are employed through the local mental health authorities. Um if you can go to the next slide please. Okay. So the goal of the behavioral health partnership program is to promote the best practices list in the statewide resources rubric. They want to increase the educational service center and school personnel's understanding of mental health and co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders. The BHPs do assist with implementing initiatives related to mental

045health and substance use. So they do partake in events like Red Ribbon Week, mental health awareness week. Um they go to counselor symposiums, parent presentations, back to school nights. Um really anything that the school has available for them to discuss their resources and the trainings that they provide um they're more than happy to be a part of for the ISDs. Um and so additionally the BHPPSPPS ensure that the school personnel are aware of the best practices um public and private um and all um of the mental health and substance use resources and programs in your areas. Um in addition to you can leave it on that one. Um in addition to providing resources and access and support, the liaison also provide and are required monthly to provide um mental health first aid, trauma and grief,

046trauma and grief for the intellectual developmental disabilities population and substance use prevention and intervention trainings. So that is four trainings that we're required to provide for y'all's for the districts every month. Um the liaison are able to travel to the campuses and communities to provide these trainings. um and any trainings that the districts are requesting, our program is is unique and the and that we get to create our own curriculum or any curriculum that you're asking for. So, um if there's a need that the school is having, um our leaison are able to get that information and bring it back to the district. Um and all of the trainings provided by the liaison are provided for free. Um, so there's no there's no charge for using our program at all. Um, the exception of that

047is mental health first aid. So we do partner with John Dell's team um to provide mental health first aid for free. Funding is not always available. So that would be something that we would need to check in with her team before to make sure that funding is available. Um, so I just like to give that caveat. But all the other three trainings will be free to your districts. Um, okay. Now you can go to the next slide. Sorry. Okay. Okay. So, in these next slides, you can see um what LMHAs are servicing your area by the ESC number. Um I'm not going to read them all, but you can see that one is Tropical of Texas, two is Nestus, and then you can see to the right of that the the additional LMHs that also

048serve that catchment area. Um and so this is how you would know what LMHA you need to reach out with to contact your behavioral health partnership program liazison. Um, and then you can go to the very last the very last slide is just how to contact the the liaison. I will also put the email for the state in the chat. Um, because if you send an email to the state, I'm also happy to connect you guys to the liaison in your catchment area. Um, so I will add that now. Okay. And so sorry I sorry I flew through that only because we're on a time on a time crunch but um John Dell went through the mental health first aid piece so I didn't really need to re um catch that whole thing but um

049that is it for my section. Um yes on to I'll give it back to Ashton because I think we're transitioning to a question space. Yeah, thank you so much for uh Ivonne. Um, and I know like you mentioned you had to kind of speed through it a little bit and I'm hoping we might be able to uh catch some of those some of that information in our Q&A time together. Uh, but otherwise I think phenomenal uh job with the presentation for from you all. Uh, super excited for this um this Q&A time with with everyone. Um, so for the audience what we will do, we have some questions uh from our team to ask the uh our colleagues from HHSC. Uh but while we are doing that um if anything comes up uh in terms

050of questions that you might have please use that Q&A function uh because we will be sure to uh have some time right after this particular discussion to to address as many questions as we possibly can as well. Um, so I am actually going to start off this first question with you, Will, if you're if you're still there, my friend. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let me back up. I'll actually start this off with you, Sarah. Uh, just related to the uh system of care initiative. So, I know one of the things that you mentioned, right, is that the system of care initiative is something that is written in statute, right? uh is something that is uh in terms of the framework and the model is something that's done you know across the state as well

051as uh across the country as well. Um and then you mentioned a bit about the the funding model and and utilizing some uh federal resources to really support some specific uh school districts and school communities. And one of the questions we have here, right, is just acknowledging that not every uh district that's represented on the call today will probably have um the the system of care uh grant to support their school communities. So, we just wanted to ask a question really related to that, right? So, how can other districts that might not be a part of the the federal funding for system of care, how might they be able to get started with implementing some of the components u of the system of care model within their own school communities? Yeah, thanks so much Ashen

052and I think that's such a great question. So, I think one of the places where system of care can be a little confusing and some of it is the way as I mentioned to you, we don't have state funding. So we are able to leverage some federal funding. Um but sometimes it creates the idea that system of care is a grant. Um when really like I mentioned the most critical part is the framework and the values. So you're right we you know we're able to use this federal funding to provide these very specific services within the districts where we have contracted with those local mental health authorities for this four-year grant. But you're right, it's so much bigger than that, right? Um I think one of the first things I shared about the framework was

053we know that comprehensive support for mental health cannot be found in just one place. So again, it's really about how do we connect with how do schools connect with the community resources that exist? How do we really build out that network of services and supports? um how do we really center the voices of family members of youth, right? Um I think that's something that can really be built into um any sort of programming that goes on at a school. And then further thinking about the community organizations that exist. There's there are many that provide um family peer services, that provide youth peer services. I know there's life works here in Austin. I know um you know NAMI Texas, Texas parentto parent um provides some virtual parent support groups um so really kind of helping create

054some of those connections to a lot of those resources that exist in the community. Um, and then maybe there's an opportunity to do, you know, an informal youth peer group or an informal parent peer group, right? Um, I think sometimes we can get bogged down um, you know, thinking about if it if it looks a certain way, but it doesn't have to be something even that big or that official or formal. you know, um, one of the districts where we work, we had some youth who really kind of self-organized and they were creating this app for mental health, um, and they were doing this peer-to-peer support that they just kind of came up with on their own. So, I think just kind of thinking about um, who in the school or in the district is

055already um, really motivated and doing some of this work and maybe there's a youth and there's a family member that's already really active and we can just kind of tap into some of those pieces. So, um, yeah, it's kind of a kind of a big answer and maybe still a little bit abstract. Um, but again, just kind of thinking about how we can really pull in those values to, you know, all of the work that we do. Yeah. No, thank you for sharing that. And I I think you did a really great job, right? I think uh a lot of our eleas and and school leaders on the call today uh knowing that the system of care is a really strong evidence-based model will give them a place to start right as they think about

056how to pull together not only the resources within the district but also the resources available throughout the community as well. So thank you for thank you for sharing that and um the next question will be for you will really uh as we go to that point right using our resources within the community um you talked a lot about the local mental health authorities and the local behavioral health authorities uh um and also that TRR model right that Texas resilience and recovery model u and and it was a phenomenal job of kind of laying out the different resources available uh through that chart that you shared. Um, I know a lot of our school districts, you know, currently work whether it's informally or formally with their local mental health authorities uh to provide some resources and

057supports to to students and families. And one of the questions we want to uh ask and kind of have a little bit more clarity as well is when would it be typically appropriate for a school or a campus to refer a student uh to their local mental health authority or behavioral health authority? I appreciate the question. Um, to make sure I understand, the question is, when would it be typical or appropriate for a school or school staff to refer a youth to LMHA, LBHA? It's a good question and I I appreciate it. Um, when I think about the types of individuals who come into contact with an LMHA, the pathways that they typically take, that may mean that they intersect with the LHA through the crisis hotline as a walk-in visit or through a referral

058from a community partner. Uh, of which among the community partners that LHAS are uh uh interact with uh frequently are, you know, school districts also. In addition to that, uh, you know, jails as well, but for the purposes of this call, we'll be referring to the school district referrals. So, school districts can make referrals to any the local mental health authorities or they can provide information to a a family about um the location, the contact information, the typical services that are provided through their LMHAs. But as far as like how do you identify a youth or family who who might be appropriate for a referral from a school. Um for myself I point to what is typically understood as the definition of serious emotional disturbance or sed as we refer to it I guess here

059um at HHSC. Um and that is a uh you know to consider serious emotional disturbance. Those are those youth who have a diagnosed mental behavioral or emotional disorder in the last year that results in functional impairment substantially that that interferes or limits the child's ability to engage with their family, their school or their community activities. So, if you uh you know in your school district uh are seeing that there's a a youth whose uh mental health, behavioral health or emotional uh guess you could say symptoms are creating significant functional impairment in their ability to participate in school. That would be a uh a youth who might uh you know meet the definition for having a serious emotional disturbance. And those would be youth who would be appropriate to refer over to the local mental health

060authority if the families want to seek services from a publicly funded provider. Uh, of course families uh could elect to seek services from any private providers or any other available public providers, but the LMHAS, the LHAS are one of those types of providers who could serve youth uh, you know, who meet that meet that definition of having a serious emotional disturbance and for whom the school as a referral source sees that that those um symptoms are interfering with their ability to engage meaningfully uh in school. Um, on top of that, there are levels of care within, you know, the LMHAs whose service rate arate is specifically designed to treat um, uh, youth who are at risk of adverse consequences from school such as expulsion or or other issues like that. And there are level some

061of the levels of care within the TRR system are specifically targeted for youth who are in that risk category. And so a lot of the framework for how the levels of care are uh intended to treat youth are built around um what you might see in a school system, you know, such as those youth who were at risk of expulsion from school or other adverse outcomes. So I hope that answers some part of the question, but I'd be happy to provide more detail if if necessary. Yeah. No, that was that was uh strong and and I'm pretty sure it answered the the question pretty well, right? uh just knowing that the local health authorities can be a part of that uh referral pathway, right, or that uh resource map that a school or or district

062might have for kiddos. Um and also uh exciting to know too that there are different levels, right? It's not necessarily just for some of the most intensive cases. Uh but it could also be used for uh interventions on like uh as it relates to school uh discipline and all of that good stuff as well. So, thank you for for sharing that. Um, I do want to again remind the audience that if you have any questions for our panelists, you can use the Q&A function. I have one more question and then I'll bring on Tammy to uh to uh share any Q&A coming from the audience or the rest of the team. Uh, but this one will be for John Dell and Ivon. uh y'all talked uh pretty extensively about mental health first aid and then

063also just uh just acknow I wanted to acknowledge right that the BHP liaison are a resource as well for helping school districts you know at least identify some strong resources to provide uh youth mental health first aid training to meet that HP3 training requirement and so just I know in our conversations in the past we have had uh some really strong implementation and strong examples from school districts working with their local mental health authorities to provide uh that training to their staff u and sometimes even training up the whole staff in in one uh professional development opportunity, right? And so this question is really for both of y'all and and if y'all can share just at least one or two examples of some school districts or local mental health authorities that have partnered uh to

064to really provide some uh strong supports for getting their staff trained in youth mental health first aid. Yeah, I can answer that one. So I am really excited about all the work that's been done this fiscal year. Um people are really taking the opportunity to get trained in youth mental health first aid. So, one example is Brazos Valley trained College Station ISD in a two-day period, and they trained 138 people. So, 1,38 people were trained over 52 sessions and eight LMHAs came together to make that happen. And then there was also Peria Care who trained Ector ISD. And according to the national council who owns the mental health first a day curriculum, it was the largest one-day training ever in the United States by one organization and they trained somewhere around 1500 people. They had

065other LMHAs come out to help. They had national trainers from the National Council of Mental Well-being come out to help. And so we are recognizing and that schools need training, need this training and we may have to work with each other from around the state. It may take some planning. Let us help you plan. Um please understand, you know, everybody is working on getting that 25% train this year. So we're we have we have some funding, but it's limited. So we are doing our best to help everybody get that 25% met. So if they're if they can't do 100% of your staff this year, they are willing to make a a training plan with you for next year and the year after to get that HB3 requirement met. So the MHFA outreach workers are so

066happy to work with the school districts in making that plan whether you need to train 25 people, 100 people, or 1500 people. Um let us work together to do that. Well, thank you for sharing that. you have anything you might want to add? I was also just going to piggyback on what she said. I had assembly leazison that were part of the Esleta ISD. Um they trained the entire staff like all the the staff in that uh district also in a one-day period um last like I believe last quarter. And so um just us working together is really helpful. And um we're hoping to be able to provide these big uh presentations and trainings to everybody um and get as many people who are certified to come and present these trainings. And so just to

067piggyback what she said, please reach out. We're help we're happy to help plan it u get the staff together, bring in other LMHAs and hope that we can help you guys meet this House Bill 3 requirement as well. Awesome. Thank Thank you all for sharing that. And I think the the name of the game or the theme uh shared with that one, right? is that school districts, you don't have to do it alone, right? You just heard Jandelle and Ivon uh talk extensively, right, about just uh being open and welcoming to helping you plan and implement uh those strategies to provide that youth mental health first aid training. Um so, yes. And then Ashton, I was just going to say I think there's a lot of like because of the time crunch, I think a

068lot of people are like we need this right now to just get this out of the way. Like we still have three years like to 2029 to get this requirement out. So, we're going to be here for those for that time frame. We're going to have support. And so, like, don't panic. Like, we're TEA knows that we're all trying to get this done. And so, I think just just know that funding will will be back in the bucket in the next in the next fiscal year. And so, um, we'll continue to push these trainings out as as much as we can. Yes, ma'am. Thank you for that. And before we move on to our next set of HHSC presenters, uh Tammy, I think we have time for maybe one or two, uh questions from from

069your Q&A, uh and and I'll just go ahead and pass it over to you before we get started with the next set of presenters. All right, I will um combine it into one question, but the question um is is you know, sometimes as districts may think that okay, these are state programs. Yes, it's easy to get in bigger schools, you know, those kind of things. Can you talk a little bit about or give an example of how rural school districts have utilized your services? And then to wrap in another question, it was more of um uh someone had asked a specific population about like Head Start or or things of that nature as far as accessing the training and stuff like that. So, wanted to throw that out there. any examples of working with rural

070USA or um also to kind of special programs outside of your traditional ISDs? At least for mental health first aid, I can say like in the Hill Country area that mental health first aid outreach worker, I believe she covers the most miles in the in the state and she will drive from one end to the other end to the most rural and frontier areas of her county. Um, I know Center for Life Resources, I believe, has some uh frontier counties and they are doing training out there. So, at least for mental health first aid, contact your mental health first aid outreach worker. I'll link the map again in the chat and they will go where you need them to go. Um, I can't always promise that funding is available right now in this moment, but

071they will work with you on a plan and and do their best and they will work together regionally and across the state. I have folks from North Texas saying, "Y'all need me to go to South Texas? I'll go and help you train." So, um, they are a great group and I highly recommend you reach out to them to to come up with a plan. If you're in a rural or frontier, urban, suburban area, they they are willing to help. And then for for my team, uh, my team does send out a lot of uh monthly newsletters or updates or upcoming trainings and things like that. um because my program isn't required by the districts to partake. If there's not any response, they're not going out. And so I think a big part of us coming

072here today is to also just discuss like it when you guys reach out to to me or to the liaison, they will respond. I think it's just sometimes they only have so many contacts from the ESC that they're distributing that list to or distributing those resources to. And so um similar to John Dell, my team is able to travel. we cover their expenses to travel. Like that's part of all the contract stuff that we do with them. And so they're more than happy to go out. I think sometimes it's just certain rural areas or certain districts are just not responsive to us or maybe it we're those those newsletters aren't maybe just not getting in the right hands of the people who know how to utilize our resource. And so um that's something we're working

073on continuing to push out and just get as much um awareness of what our program is and what it does out there. And then I think your second question, Tammy, was about um Head Start and partnering with other programs like that. Um we kind of do that on a like on a request basis. I think we have a ton of requests to be in the schools. Um so if anyone from Head Start or any of those other agencies is on here um providing support to the parents is still assisting the students and so um if there is any parent presentations that you have or you need support in presenting those presentations to parents about students um we're happy to go out and I ju I would just need to know what what area that's in

074and so um please feel free to reach out to me directly and I'm happy to connect you to that liaison. They do do trainings at like Head Start. I know that they've gone to some um domestic violence um like domestic violence survivor um like cottages and stuff and done trainings there. So really my staff is happy to integrate into to make this program be accessible to more than just the schools in ESC. They want to help all the people that are supporting students. And so um however we can do that, we're happy to to help. Great, great. Well, thank you all so much for taking the time out. Uh, of course, you know, we will have our next set of presenters from from HHSC, but I think you all have shared some really awesome insights

075uh for our uh folks on the call today to to consider. And so now without further ado, I will uh turn it over to the prevention and behavioral health promotion unit from HHSC to share a little bit more about the suicide prevention and youth youth substance use prevention and intervention supports that can be accessed by school communities as well. Okay, thank you so much Ashton. My name is Jen Meyer. I work with the um prevention and behavioral health promotion unit, specifically with the HHS state suicide prevention team. Um and I'm going to kick us off today, talk a little bit about um the pro the prevention and behavioral health promotion unit and then talk um specifically about suicide prevention. And so this is just kind of a brief overview of what we're going to be

076talking about. Again, I'm going to um just talk briefly about the PBHP program or unit, the suicide prevention program, and then I will pass it off to my um colleagues who will talk um more about the youth prevention programs, our community coalition partnership program, the turn two campaign, and Texas school survey. And so just um quickly a little bit about the prevention and behavioral health um promotion unit. Um what we do um is um obviously prevention and behavioral health promotion, but it includes both substance use and suicide prevention programs. So, um our um behavioral health services with HHSC oh maybe about 6 months ago or so did um a realignment and we decided to align um our suicide prevention and substance use prevention programs. And the reason is is that we believe that there's a

077strong connection between the missions of both substance use prevention and suicide prevention. Um and we believe that prevention and treating substance use does prevent suicides. And so the three programs that fall under this unit are suicide prevention, our prevention and educational programs and promotions and public awareness. So like I said, I'm going to um talk about suicide prevention. So really what our suicide prevention program does is it just works to reduce suicide throughout the state of Texas. And so our program shares tools for screening and assessing suicide risk. Uh we analyze suicide data and trends. We're very fortunate that we have an epidemiologist on our team and she does um a wonderful job um in helping us analyze that suicide data and helping us stay knowledgeable on the most recent uh trends, excuse me, within

078that data. And we also provide training and technical assistances, excuse me, assistance for best practices for suicide prevention, intervention, and post vvention. Um, and I'm sure everyone here is familiar with prevention and intervention. If you have not heard the term postvention before, postvention um, are really those efforts of support and resources that are provided to individuals who have lost loved ones to suicide. So, I'm going to hi I'm going to talk a little bit or just kind of highlight the kind of the main things um that we do um with the suicide prevention team. And I'm going to start us off by talking about the suicide care initiative. So, the suicide care initiative is a mental health block grant funded project that works through those local mental health authorities and local behavioral health authorities that

079we've been talking about um to carry out what we call the zero suicide framework. And the zero suicide framework um is just a framework of evidence-based practices with the goal of systemwide transformation and a commitment towards a suicide safer community. And the foundational belief of zero suicide is that suicide deaths are preventable and particularly within behavioral health care systems. And so what the suicide care initiative looks like um in our state um if you can go to the next slide please. um is that we have um this initiative created four regional suicide support care centers which are um LMHAs that serve as pilot sites for that zero suicide. And so the four RSCC's are the Harris Center, Integral Care, My Health, My Resources of Tarant County, and Tropical Texas Behavioral Health. And what these regional

080suicide support centers do is they oversee the development, implementation, and evaluation of that suicide safer care both within their agencies as well as um the other LMHAs and LBHAs that are in their region. Um and um one thing that I want to kind of point out from this initiative or um just an example of some of the work that they do is that training that we were had were talking about. And so, um, I know John Dell and her team talked, um, some about that youth mental health first aid and mental health first aid. Um, those, um, that we do have, there are trainers at the LMHAS, as well as trainers, um, in some of the trainings that I'm going to talk about in a little bit that our team help facilitate as well that

081they can come and help provide um, suicide prevention trainings, mental health trainings, etc. to community partners and to the schools. Um, okay. Next slide, please. So, before I talk about those trainings, I just want to talk a little bit about some of the suicide prevention resources that we provide and have developed for the community. We often get asked questions like, how does someone, you know, how do I identify um how do I know someone is suicidal, right? What are some of those risk factors? How can I ask someone about suicide? How can I help someone um help get them um the help that they need? And so we re we created several one pagers that are on our website and I'll post our um website in the chat as well as our group email um

082once I'm done with my little uh spiel here. Um but what I wanted to high what we wanted to highlight today is some of those um youth suicide specific um one pagers that we have related to suicide prevention and these are um free on our website. You can download print them feel free to share them electronically. Um the obviously the links are on the slides but we have um as you can see here we have a youth suicide prevention um resource guide or resource page. We have a wallet card specifically for parents um for youth suicide prevention. We have some postvention inter um information. The next slide lists some of our special population um um resources. So we have one for um ID um and if you can move to the next slide please. So

083we have one for um individuals that have that are diagnosed with um for int individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We have a one pager that is specific for teachers and we also have um some information um for youth that are involved with the justice system. We also have some links for some um other resources that talk about risk factors um 988 um suicide and crisis hotline um warning sites etc. and you those all can be found on our website. Um okay so um I want to talk about also about trainings and so um some of you are probably familiar with the trainings that we offer. Um this is a big part of what we do within our team as well as we help facilitate with the local mental health authorities. Um again because the

084local mental health authorities also have trainers in um many of these trainings. And so we try to help um community partners or help schools um coordinate or collaborate with those local mental health authorities for that professional development and for those trainings. And so I'm not going to talk about every single one of these trainings just for time sake, but I'm going to highlight a couple um a few that um I think um are um real helpful for schools as well as parents and families um and other community members. Um the ones that you may be most familiar with are ask um about suicide to save a life and our safety planning intervention trainings. So, our ask about suicide to save a life is uh that three-hour virtual or in-person training that uh covers suicide data.

085We talk about risk factors, protective factors. Um and it it also teaches individuals how to talk about suicide and ask about suicide. And our safety planning intervention is a 4-hour virtual or in-person training that teaches safety planning for someone at risk for suicide. Um those are the probably the most common ones that we do particularly within the schools or um within the community. Um we also periodically offer um train the trainers for both ask and safety planning. Um and we try to um you know obviously uh get that information out as as quickly as we can um once we know when we're going to be doing those trainings. But again, um the local mental health authorities also have trainers um in these same also have trainers that can teach these same trainings. And so we

086try to collaborate or try to help facilitate that collaboration as much as possible. Uh we also recently started doing a crisis risk assessment training. This is actually a two-day virtual training, but it does help teach mental health providers specifically on how to complete a comprehensive risk assessment. Um and then on the next slide um a couple the only the couple others that I just want to mention are some people may not be aware that we also provide a postvention in schools training. Um this helps teach a healthy grieving from suicide loss and I know um unfortunately um many schools have experienced um suicide loss um whether that's been you know among the student population or faculty or um other school staff. Um so we can do that training um um if you know if if

087any schools are interested. Um also when you know sometimes we get asked how can we you know how can we provide trainings for parents or family members um and um the our suicide care in Texas is a brief is a briefer training it's about an hour and a half we can do that virtually um as well but it's an overview of just suicide prevention intervention and post vvention support um and what that looks like throughout the state of Texas. And so it's kind of more of an informative training, but it can be useful for those um individuals that are maybe trying to um understand or learn how to navigate um what suicide care looks like in Texas. And again, I will um post our um group email um and um our website. If you are

088interested in those trainings, you can um certainly email us um and get and to get more information or any other resources or technical assistance that we might be able to provide, you can um also reach out to us. And um that is pretty much oh well I do have a slide on mental health first aid. Um I think John Dell did a really great job of um you know talking about youth mental health kind of what we can provide what HHSC um can provide our team specifically will can help facilitate with the local mental health authorities um particularly with the schools to help you um I know there's sometimes people ask you know will reach out to us looking for those trainers because they are lacking trainers in their area or they're having difficult difficulty

089finding those trainers. Our team can help facilitate that as well. That's pretty much it on suicide prevention. I'm going to go ahead and pass it off to my colleague Ricardo and he is going to talk about youth prevention programs. Thank you, Jen. Uh my name is Ricardo Alamon. I'm the associate director for our youth prevention and educational programs. And so I'm just going to briefly talk a little bit about our YP programs. We are currently in all 11 regions uh HHSS HHSC regions here in Texas. We cover a majority of the counties in those regions. Um our programs utilize an evidence-based strategy uh called our prevention um framework. It's our strategic prevention framework. We also use our six CESAP strategies in our youth prevention programs which is information dissemination, providing education. We do positive alternatives

090and we also do problem ID and referrals with the folks that we're working with. U the curriculas that we use with our youth prevention programs include the blues program, our curriculum based support groups, learning to breathe, life skills training, positive action and we also incorporate two family focused programs which is guiding good choices and strengthening families. The family focused programs brings uh the adults and the youth together uh to uh go through these curriculas that we have. Um our curriculas are um implemented in three different populations of focus. The first one that you see here is our uh youth prevention universal which focuses on the general population. our youth prevention selective which focus on subgroups of the general population and our youth prevention indicated which focus on people that are in high-risk environments. Um I

091will turn it over now to my colleague Claire Jameson to talk about the rest of our youth prevention programs. Hi everyone. Um I am going to do um an overview of a few of our more environmental level prevention programs. Um my name is Claire Jamson. I'm the um one of the other associate directors in prevention and behavioral health promotion and my team oversees more of our environmental level prevention programs. So, kind of zooming out and looking at what we're doing on the community um or the state level. Um so, the first program I'm going to talk about are our community coalition partnership program. Um so, we fund organizations across the state to create coalitions in communities to address substance use on the community level. Um, so as Ricardo mentioned, our programs also use the strategic

092prevention framework, which is SAMA's framework for kind of implementing evidence-based change in communities to address substance use. Um, and so these coalitions, I think right now we have 42 across the state. um they'll look at the their community and they'll see kind of what they'll do an environmental um scan of the community, see what substance use looks like in the community and then work with their different coalition members which is a group of you know um the sectors of the community that would be interested in substance use prevention. So, we're looking at schools, law enforcement, um you know, uh chamber of commerce, um hospitals, um just kind of youth, parents, just kind of the whole community, seeing what different changes we can make. Um and so these environmental strategies are really looking at changing policies

093and influencing social norms. Um a good example of an environmental policy that I know a lot of our coalitions have worked on are smoke-free policies. So um many people may not know that statewide we don't have a law prohibiting indoor use of like cigarettes or other tobacco products. Um so one example of a environmental strategy is that our um coalitions can work you know on a municipal level with their decision makers to help them pass a comprehensive smokefree ordinance so that they can um you know prevent indoor use of tobacco which works on one changing policies and also changing norms regarding using tobacco use in the community. Um, another example could be one of our coalitions could um during their needs assessment and community scan could um see a place that you know previously was

094a park has fallen into disrepair and maybe is a place where a lot of people go to use substances. Um, something they could do is they could work with the community to kind of transform that space and instead of being a place where people goes to use substances, it could become a place where the community gathers for celebrations or a park or a place where people could do those alternative activities that Ricardo mentioned in his presentation. Um, so we do have a list of all of our currently funded coalitions and alo also our youth prevention programs on one of our websites and I can put that website in the chat after this, but it's um TexasPreventionraining.org. It has a map of all of our providers, substance use prevention providers across the state, but there definitely

095are coalitions in your community if you or your school want to get involved. We also do um we do have one school district, Clear Creek ISD, and they have a coalition out out of their school district. So, um there are definitely lots of ways that schools can get involved in the community to prevent substance use. Um the next thing I'm going to talk about is our our statewide media campaign. Um so in the past our prevention program has done um a lot of media to kind of educate the public on the dangers of substance use. Um and while that is important, I do think that um a majority of us know that substances are dangerous. Um and so in an effort to kind of move substance use prevention more upstream and address the risk and

096protective factors or address mostly the risk factors that cause substance use um we created this campaign called Turn to Um, and turn two is funded by those co dollars we got from the federal government. And really turn two is kind of um really promoting people to instead of turning to substance uses to address their emotions to turning to either a person or a resource in their community if they're having those feelings they need to address or if they have any, you know, um, underlying mental health issues that they would like addressed. Um, so right now we're in our third year of the turn to campaign. Um we are about to do a big media buy at the end of March. And previously the turn to campaign had focused on adults, community leaders and the general

097public to kind of educate them on um you know that people may be struggling that they if you or if you are struggling you can turn to somebody to talk about that or if you see someone in your life that's struggling you know make yourself available so they can turn to you to talk about their struggles and so you can provide help. Um we have a lot of resources on our website turn to supportstx.org org. Um, I'll kind of go over some of those resources on the next slide, but I'm really excited to talk about the next iteration of our campaign for this fiscal year. Um, we're going to be doing more outreach to those adults that work with youth. So, teachers, school counselors, um, you know, community leaders that work with youth. We're really

098doing a big ad push and our messaging is really geared towards them. As you can see, we have one of our ads on the screen right there. You know, turn to family and friends for support. Um, we also created a variety of resources aimed at this population. And one of those are these conversation cards that I have on screen. It's a deck, and these will be available on our website. Uh, in the future, we're still working on getting them uploaded, but we have like a deck of conversation cards that have different prompts you can read, and they're all like positive, but also kind of help direct the conversation towards, you know, what would you tell a friend if they were sad? What's something you're proud of? What's something you could do today to make tomorrow

099better? or what's something you can think of in the morning to like have a positive day. So, it's it's positive different um messages like that. So, we're hoping that could be a tool for people to use working with youth. Um so, like I said, our ads will be coming out in March. Very excited about that. You should be seeing them soon. And since y'all are really our target audience here, you may see those ads come up on your social or um you know, you may see them on billboards or on buses. Um the next slide just kind of goes over our different resources we have that are aimed at or could be helpful for y'all. And we also have um one of our bookmarks that kind of goes over uh the different um emojis that

100have the different feelings. And so this bookmark will also be available on our website. Um it's still being uploaded. That's why these two don't have links, but here are some um resources that are all hyperl to our website that I think could be helpful for y'all. Um and you'll be able to click on these and see them after when y'all receive the slides. Um, so that's kind of my quick overview of Turno to. If you have any questions, you know, feel free to email me. I can put my email in the chat. Um, the last thing I'm going to go over is our Texas school survey. And really the reason I wanted to talk about this during this call is it's really a plug to promote participation. Um, so the Texas School Survey of Drug

101and Alcohol Use is something that the state has been funding since 1998 and we work with Texas A&M and they do a random selection of schools and they go to school administrators and ask if they'll participate in the school survey. Um, schools that are randomly selected for the statewide sample receive a monetary incentive and survey materials for free. um those those schools are also able instead of getting a monetary support to get a campus level or a district level report. So you can request a report um so you can see kind of the substance use on your campus or at the district level. Um the reason this survey is incredibly important to us is it really helps us at the statewide level figure out figure out what's going on at the community level, how we

102need to direct resources and also look at, you know, emerging substance use trends. Um, we're working on making some adjustments to our future survey to kind of dig down a little more into marijuana use around the state because that's something that we're looking at. But, um, I do feel like this is a really important survey that we rely on. Um, so we really need the school's help in participating because we need like the most accurate data so that we could know how to best allocate our resources across the state. Um, that's my last slide, so I'll go ahead and stop sharing my screen. Um, here are the two public email inboxes that we have. I know Jen mentioned here's the suicide prevention inbox and then here's our just general substance use prevention inbox. Um and

103I think Ricardo also put our information in the chats. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you so much to that HHSC team. Uh some phenomenal resources and implementation strategies that were shared uh related to suicide prevention and substance uh misuse prevention as well. Um, uh, Ricardo, uh, we had a few folks in the chat that just wanted to learn a little bit more about the youth prevention programs. I know we kind of got towards the end of the, um, to the session there and kind of had to speed up a bit. Um, but before I ask you that question, Tammy, I'm going to go ahead and ask you to put the survey of QR code and and link and all that good stuff in the chat. I'm sorry, up on the screen. We also put

104it in the chat. we'll have our Q&A discussion, but as folks are kind of listening in, we do want to encourage you all to use uh to go ahead and open up that link and uh complete the post session survey. Uh so yeah, going back to Mr. Ricardo, uh can you talk a little bit more about those evidence-based uh programs that the um through the YP uh program that you have? And then also if a school district wanted to bring in some of those evidence-based programs or utilize those resources, what are some like good steps or considerations and I know I've asked this before in in other meetings to you, but even like cost considerations as well. Yeah, definitely. Thank you. Uh so our our evidence-based curriculas that we use are researched curriculas that have

105uh been gone through you know several uh levels of research and so we know that they they definitely work with our youth. Um so our curriculas really focus on addressing more health than uh the old way we used to do prevention. you we used to do prevention as don't do drugs, drugs are bad, the egg in the frying pan thing. Um how we address substance use prevention now is we talk about eating healthy. We talk about taking care of your body. We talk about how important exercise is. We also talk about or the curriculas talk about um the importance of getting an education or the importance of of learning and and really working on your mind. So it addresses it from a more uh health perspective as opposed to what we used to do in

106the past. Um the programs that are out in the community or our providers that are providing these curriculas in the community, if you're wanting to bring some of them into your schools, we have a link at our Texas Prevention Training website that has a um a directory. So you're able to go into that directory and filter out which providers provide services in the region that you're in and even in the counties that you're in. So you would just connect with one of our providers to be able to bring them into your school. If you're not able to find the provider through the map or the uh directory that we have, you can always reach out to Claire Jameson or myself and we can get you connected with your local prevention provider. And uh I think

107the last piece of that too, any cost considerations districts might need to consider uh if they want to bring in some of those uh providers uh and and provide the uh the curriculum interventions that you mentioned. Yeah. No, there there is absolutely no cost for our providers to go in and provide this service to your schools. we uh we fund them at 100%. Uh so they're able to go in without any without charging any fees or anything like that. So a great uh resource for you all that really has some really good benefits. So I encourage you to reach out so we can get some of those uh curriculas in your schools. Ah I love that and I'm more than sure a lot of the uh school leaders on our call today love to hear

108it. It's no charge to you. uh just reach out to us and and it's really about working through the logistics and making the time for it and I think that was a big reason why we wanted you all to to join us today. Um our final question and again I want to remind everybody to complete this uh post training survey uh as as you kind of listen in but the last question is for you Jen and Claire. y'all mentioned a bit around uh some of the um the promotion and suicide uh prevention strategies that you all can provide not only for uh you know like the campusbased staff but also for the community as well that that those uh schools uh are serving. And so can y'all talk just a little bit about uh some

109of the the the strategies that might be helpful for schools to consider uh if they are looking to bring in some of those trainings that you mentioned or some of the prevention resources that you mentioned not just for their school staff but their but for the the community uh at large. Yeah. I mean I can talk a little bit about the suicide prevention piece. I mean, I you're probably hearing this uh kind of a theme for for us all and all all the HS HHSC programs, but really utilizing that collaboration with your local mental health authority um and um developing kind of a relationship with them for that professional development piece. They can, you know, they they also provide trainings in the community to the school. So collaborating with them to be able to offer

110um different trainings like ASK um you know particularly ASK for parents and families um can be um very very useful um we the team itself can provide those trainings for families um and the community as a whole um in term for schools in particular um you know um if you're thinking about the multi- um tiered system of support, right, that at that tier one level, right, really being able to again bring in um utilizing those LMHAs or and even some of those other community partners to bring in some of those just um it doesn't even have to be just suicide prevention, but some of the just that um kind of prevention programming um and you know, offering that to um families and parents and even youth. Um, but I but I think your best strategy

111is really collaborating with those community partners and we can we can certainly help facilitate that to um to just, you know, enhance those opportunities that can be offered. And Claire may have something to add to that. I just quickly add on, you know, um, as I mentioned, we have fund coalitions across the state. So, you know, if you're interested in getting involved at that level, um, you know, coalition membership is always a great way for that. I know they love to have representation from the schools. Um, and so I'm sure any of our coalitions would be happy to work with y'all. Um, additionally, you know, all the Turn resources we have on our website are free. We have a social media toolkit. We have all the resources. If you want to distribute like some of

112the printed turn materials, you can order those through HHSC for free as well. And while Turn to isn't necessarily educating on the dangers of substance use, it's promoting those positive mental health um messages. We also have posters on our website. So, there's a lot of Turn to resources and those are all free for people um across the state. Awesome. Well, I want to just say uh thank you to the whole uh Texas Health and Human Services Commission team for joining us today. Uh I think Jamie might have already mentioned in the chat that we went a bit past over 12:30 and and folks are still staying on and so uh you all did a phenomenal job and especially just showcasing some of those resources that are either free or at very little to no cost

113for our school districts to access. Uh I think it's a really good way to show that our uh that there are state supports for school-based mental health out there and it's just really about us collaborating like you mentioned Jen uh to access those supports. So, uh, I'll pass it over to Tammy to to close us out, but again, I just wanted to say thank you, uh, to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. Excellent. Thank you, Ashton, and thank you everyone for, um, attending. As you see in the chat, there is a link um, to the post uh, post training survey. If you will please um, complete that. As a reminder, the recording and the accompanying resources for the session will be posted on our school mentalhealthx.org website. Um, additionally, you can subscribe to the

114TEA mental and behavioral health newsletter by using the link um that's going to be in the chat and you can also find it on the website. You can select um other TEA topics of interest and then you'll be able to continue to get more information and updates as things um roll out through our team. Um, for those of you that attended the whole session, CPE certificates will be emailed to the email address you registered with within one week. We really thank you for joining our session today and a huge thank you to our amazing um, HHSC presenters and um, um, have a great day. Thank you everyone.