Description
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Mental Health Services is accepting applications for fiscal year (FY) 2013 National Resource Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention (YVP-RC) cooperative agreement. The purpose of this jointly funded program is to serve as a national resource and training center to increase the effectiveness of youth violence prevention, prevention of mental, emotional and behavioral disorders, and promotion of the healthy development of children and youth. The YVP-RC will also provide technical assistance for SAMHSAs Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) and Linking Actions for Unmet Needs in Childrens Health (Project LAUNCH) grant programs. Funding for this announcement is from the Youth Violence Prevention program in the amount of $4.599 million (74 percent) and $1.572 million (26 percent) from Project LAUNCH. It is SAMHSAs intent that the YVP-RC provide states/tribes, organizations, and communities with the resources they need to eliminate or reduce the impact of risk factors and promote positive and protective factors for children, youth, young adults, and their families. This program will advance the dissemination and use of prevention research to inform development and implementation of policies and programs across state and tribal agencies. Planning and implementation of statewide prevention programming and policies will be accomplished through the use of a public health approach. The YVP-RC also seeks to address health disparities among racial and ethnic minorities by ensuring that YVP-RC recipients are encouraged to develop and implement strategies to decrease differences in prevalence, access, service use, and outcomes among racial and ethnic minority children, youth, young adults, and families served. Since 1999, the Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) grant program has provided funds to local educational agencies to partner with public health, mental health, education, law enforcement, justice and social service systems, as well as families and youth, to plan, implement, evaluate, and sustain a comprehensive plan of programs, activities, and services to prevent violence and foster the healthy development of children and youth. SAMHSA seeks to build upon the lessons learned by engaging state and community agencies (including local education agencies) to develop partnerships that will result in the successful implementation of comprehensive school violence prevention that are guided the SS/HS model. The SS/HS State Planning, Local Education Agency, and Local Community program (SS/HS State Program) will build state-level partnerships among educational, behavioral health (i.e., mental health and substance abuse), and criminal justice systems, and develop capacity at the state- and community-levels to create safe and supportive schools and communities through cross-system partnerships. Since FY 2008, Project LAUNCH has supported a vision of communities in which families participate in a seamless set of programs, supports, and services that promote healthy early childhood development and result in more children reaching developmental milestones and entering school ready and able to learn. Grantees work to create coordinated, integrated, and effective early childhood systems. In addition, grantees plan and implement a range of prevention and wellness promotion activities for young children and their families. The Project LAUNCH Five Core Strategies represent best practice in promoting the mental health of young children in multiple settings across the child serving system, including primary care, early care and education, and within the home. The YVP-RC cooperative agreement is authorized under Section 520A of the Public Health Service Act, as amended. This announcement addresses Healthy People 2020 Mental Health and Mental Disorders Topic Area HP 2020-MHMD.