Mental Health Connection
of Tarrant County

Next Membership Meeting

June 8 , 2009
8:30 a.m.
Tarrant County Juvenile Services
2701 Kimbo Road
Fort Worth, Texas 76011


Minutes of previous meetings

Organization Chart

2009 Committees Resolution

Current Initiatives

2009 Bridging the Gap Registration Form

Learning Communities

Reports from Learning Communities

Learning Communities Blog

Blue Ribbon Committee on
Mental Wellness in the Workplace

         Final Report

         Detailed Final
               Report

         Mental Health 
         Insurance
         Coverage in       
         Tarrant County

              Executive
                Summary
                   

              Full Report

Strategic Plan

Anti-Stigma Campaign

Hand in Hand

Wraparound

Family Resource Centers

Kenneth Barr Award

Standards of Care

Grant-Seeking Process

 

 

Hand in Hand Issues RFP for Facilitators

Hand in Hand has issued a Request for Proposals for organizations interested in contracting to provide facilitators
for families involved in wraparound. The position is part of
the cooperative agreement with the Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services Administration. Click below for a copy
of the RFP.

Hand in Hand Facilitator RFP

For questions and answers, click on the link below. All questions will be posted and answered on this Web site as they arrive.

Questions and Answers

Hand in Hand covers children from birth through age 6 in Hood, Johnson, Palo Pinto, Parker and Tarrant Counties (with the exception of Fort Worth which received services from Community Solutions, the previous cooperative agreement). Facilitators should be located in or highly familiar with the area to be served.

The Hand in Hand cooperative agreement will support expansion of the mental health system of care further into all of the communities. Wraparound services will be provided to 370 children from birth through age 6 in these counties over the six-year grant.

Hand in Hand will also facilitate the development or enhancement of family support groups, educate the public about the need for prevention and early intervention, and work with early childhood providers to help them identify mental health issues in young children.

More Information

2009 Bridging the Gap Symposium
To Focus on Children Birth to Age 11

Mental Health Connection will hold the 2009 Bridging the Gap Symposium on November 2-3. Texas Christian University will again serve as the host.

The focus this year will be on children between birth and age 11. This focus will complement the new Hand in Hand System of Care cooperative agreement, which is working to build the system of care for children from birth through age 6.

Speakers already confirmed for this year's Symposium are:

Janice L. Cooper, Ph.D., Director of Child Health and Mental Health, National Center for Children in Poverty

Peter Jensen, M.D., Chief Executive Officer, The REACH Institute

Kelly King-Jackson, Outreach Director, Children's Defense Fund

Bruce Perry, M.D., Ph.D., Senior Fellow, Child Trauma Academy

Registration is now open for the 2009 Bridging the Gap Symposium. Click here to download a copy.

DSHS Asks Mental Health Connection to Participate in Trauma Study

The Texas Department of State Health Services, through the Mental Health Transformation Grant, has offered Mental Health Connection an opportunity to be a part of a study that will evaluate the effectiveness of Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with specific training and ongoing consultation for providers. The study will evaluate 75 children and adolescents in Tarrant County whose providers have received training and continue to receive consultation in the evidence-based practice. The study will include evaluation of fidelity to the evidence-based program model. Another community will be selected in which providers will be trained in TF-CBT, but they will not have the ongoing consultation or evaluation of their fidelity to the model. The result will provide one measure of the impact transformation has on consumer outcomes.

Because the study involves many of the concepts included in the pilot program recommended by the Trauma/PTSD Learning Community, the Trauma/PTSD Implementation Team will work with the state to support the study. Mental Health Connection is currently seeking agencies to participate in the study.

The state is required to enroll 75 children and adolescents between the ages of 8 and 18 in the study by the end of May. Therefore, the turnaround time is rapid. Agencies must sign the participation agreement and send it to Mental Health Connection by Monday, Nov. 17. Mandatory half-day training programs will be held on three different dates in January to meet as many schedules as possible. An additional two-day training program will be provided in January Before attending the session, participants must complete Web-based training.

The following materials are available for more information, along with the agreement each agency must sign.            

Trauma Screening Tool

PowerPoint presentation made to mental health agencies on Nov. 10, 2008

Bringing Resiliency After Trauma ("B.R.A.T.)

News

Families Design and Conduct Wraparound Evaluation
Family members who received services through Community Solutions designed and carried out their own qualitative study this year. Their goal was to help determine what worked and what didn't during the six-year cooperative agreement with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Working with the Community Solutions Evaluation Team, the family members involved in the project interviewed 40 other randomly selected families. The results, which include the individual stories of many families surveyed, are intriguing and eye-opening. Click here to read the full report.

Mental Health Connection Offers Toolkit for
Consumer-Run Qualitative Study
System of Care communities that want to conduct their own consumer-run qualitative study can click here for a toolkit to help them get started.

Community Solutions Evaluation Team
Receives National Recognition
The Community Solutions Evaluation Team has received national recognition from SAMSHA. It received a Gold Award for Evaluation Operations and a Silver Award for Involving Family Members and Youth in Evaluation

Mental Health Connection Advocacy Committee Announces Recommended 2009 Legislative Agenda

MHMR Receives Crisis Grants from State of Texas,
City of Fort Worth

Project Descriptions