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April 19, 2021
In this issue ...
A Request for Grant Proposals is now posted online for organizations who wish to apply for funding to increase access to low barrier treatment, peer support services, harm reduction, and housing. The application and supporting materials can be found on the Measure 110 web page and the deadline to apply is May 3, 2021.
Information about applying for the grants will be shared in a webinar at 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 20 at this Zoom link:
https://www.zoomgov.com/j/1600276670 pwd=TENpQ3UraWVkY3RQeDlEcVdObjF0Zz09
Meeting ID: 160 027 6670. Passcode: 453397
Those who don’t have Zoom can call: 1-669-254-5252. Passcode: 453397#
The Measure 110 Oversight and Accountability Council (OAC) has been meeting weekly to discuss Measure 110 implementation, which will include funding a broad array of community addiction and recovery services to improve access to treatment and related supports for people struggling with addiction.
The OAC meetings are broadcast live on YouTube each week. Links to the broadcasts, meeting agendas and M110 updates can be found on the M110 web page.
Read more about the OAC and about Measure 110. If you have questions, please contact OHA.Measure110@dhsoha.state.or.us
OHA’s Older Adult Behavioral Health Initiative Program Director, Nirmala Dhar, MSW, LCSW, will present on a virtual panel at the fourth annual Older Adult Mental Health Awareness Day Symposium on May 6, 2021, from 7 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Dhar’s panel starts at 11:15 a.m. PDT.
The presentation topic is “Promising Practices and Funding Strategies from State partnerships in Aging and Mental Health.” The panel will also include Eve Byrd, Director of the Mental Health Program at Georgia’s Carter Center, and Kimberly Williams, President and CEO of Vibrant Emotional Health, a New York-based non-profit that manages behavioral health programs in New York City and administers the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and NYC Well.
Each of the panelists will discuss their state’s innovative strategies and funding opportunities for aging and mental health partnerships.
Dhar has attended the event before but this is the first year she will be a speaker.
“It’s an honor and a privilege to be invited to speak and to showcase some of the great work we are doing in Oregon,” she says.
Dhar will primarily speak about OHA’s investment in the Older Adult Behavioral Health Initiative. Now in its sixth year, the initiative receives a $3.5 million annual investment, “which illustrates OHA’s priority to reach older adults with mental health issues,” she says.
After 30 years of experience working in the older adult mental health field, Dhar helped launch OHA’s Behavioral Health Initiative in 2015, which aims to meet the needs of older adults and people living with physical disabilities by ensuring timely access to care from qualified providers. To that end, one of the chief components of the initiative is workforce development.
“We are really looking to develop a workforce better qualified to meet the unique behavioral health needs of older adults,” she says. This includes providing free trainings to a variety of professionals, volunteers and caregivers, and promoting collaboration and coordination among multiple sectors that impact or touch older adults.
“What we are doing is really unique among all states. Nobody else has a program like ours,” says Dhar. More information about OHA’s Behavioral health Initiative can be found at Oregonbhi.org.
The 4th Annual Older Adult Mental Health Awareness Day Symposium is sponsored by the National Council on Aging, the U.S. Administration for Community Living, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. This year’s virtual event is free, but advance registration is required. For registration and agenda, see: https://connect.ncoa.org/oamhad-agenda-live
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The Mental Health Clinical Advisory Group (MHCAG) was tasked by the legislature in 2019 to create relevant, informative, and up-to-date mental health clinical practice recommendations for prescribing providers in Oregon. The MHCAG consists of 18 medical, psychological, psychiatric, and pharmaceutical treatment professionals, mental health advocates and a member with lived experience. The group members combine their collective treatment expertise with evidence-based research to create and publish medication and psychosocial treatment algorithms and other brief clinical recommendations.
The goal of the MHCAG is to create a substantive library of clinical guidance documents for multiple mental health disorders that will ultimately help prescribers and other treatment professionals raise and maintain the standard of mental health care for all Oregonians, regardless of whether they seek treatment from their primary care provider or a specialist.
In addition to publishing clinical practice recommendations, the MHCAG makes recommendations to the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee on the implementation of the algorithms and any changes needed to preferred drug lists used by OHA.
To date, MHCAG has published comprehensive clinical practice recommendations for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The group began working on major depressive disorder this year and has already published its first document. It is projected that work on this disorder will continue at least through the first quarter of next year. The library of clinical practice recommendations is on the MHCAG website.
OHA received a planning grant to prepare Oregon for the launch of 988, a National Suicide Prevention emergency number that will go live on July 16, 2022, nationwide. The $135,000 grant from Vibrant Emotional Health, the nonprofit that administers the National Suicide Prevention hotline, helps to pay for planning for training, technical assistance, and infrastructure needs to allow access to the new number by that date.
“We look forward to having another tool to help us save lives,” says OHA Director Patrick Allen. “We’re grateful to Vibrant for awarding these funds to help us move forward with our strategic planning and infrastructure to make 988 accessible to all Oregonians.”
The new 988 number will become the national three-digit dialing code for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, replacing the current phone number of 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Anyone needing support should continue to call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) until 988 becomes active in July 2022.
OHA is excited to announce two nationally recognized programs designed for elementary schools: Sources of Strength – Elementary and 5 Radical Minutes for grades K-5. In these low- to no-cost programs, suicide prevention work not only includes looking for risk factors, warning signs, and intervention, but also discovering, teaching and celebrating resilience, help-seeking, connection, strength, and belonging. Sign up here to bring these programs to your school.
Lines for Life’s School Suicide Prevention and Wellness Team, supported by funding from Oregon Department of Education and OHA, continues to support schools, school districts, and Education Service Districts to create, bolster, and refine their suicide prevention plans. These plans are required per Senate Bill 52 (2019), which is also known as Adi’s Act.
To date, the team has awarded $115,000 in mini grants to support implementation of suicide prevention in schools in every county in Oregon.
The School-Based Mental Health Programs (SBMH) administered by OHA significantly expanded in 2019-2021 through increased funding, bringing services to 17 counties. During the 2019-2020 school year, a total of 52 mental health clinicians provided services to a total of 1,729 individual students across 95 schools and 38 school districts.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, clinicians quickly pivoted to provide services via telehealth. Despite teleworking and distance learning, clinicians identified unique ways to reach students and their families. Many clinicians have been added to schools’ classroom or instructional platforms, information has been posted on school websites and some schools have links to pre-recorded videos of the clinicians introducing themselves, increasing student awareness of available services.
Clinicians also created new opportunities to provide support during the pandemic and the subsequent wildfires. Some clinicians spent time assisting schools with food and clothing distribution and connecting families to insurance enrollment services, as well as other critical economic and housing supports.
In Spring 2019, the state legislature recognized the need for a coordinated and collaborative response to youth suicide in Oregon and added more funding to the Youth Suicide Intervention and Prevention Plan. From this funding, the Child and Family Behavioral Health team built connected programming for youth suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention. This set of programs is collectively referred to as “the Big Seven” (previously the Big Six). Each of the seven programs now has statewide coordination and support while still being led by local suicide prevention leaders. While each of the Big Seven programs can be implemented alone, together they create a comprehensive system of intervention for Oregon’s young people.
OHA has invested in two new peer support positions at Youth ERA in 2020 to help meet the need for virtual peer support services during the pandemic. Youth ERA is currently supporting between 86-115 youth per stream on Twitch and about 200 youth per day on the Discord platform. The investment in two new positions allows Youth ERA to increase their reach and continue to adapt to the needs of youth and young adults during the pandemic.
OHA’s Child and Family Behavioral Health program is hosting a weekly drop-in discussion hour for parents and family members of children and young people who experience mental health or addiction issues. The hour, called “A Time for Families,” offers an opportunity to ask questions and share concerns, as well as give feedback to OHA on ways to help youth, young adults and their families get the right service at the right time.
The drop-in hour is hosted by Director of Child and Family Behavioral Health Chelsea Holcomb and Family Partnership Specialist Frances Purdy. Representatives from the OHA Ombudsperson program and the Parent/Family Help Line will also attend the session to follow-up with any immediate concerns.
“A Time for Families” is on Thursdays from noon to 1 p.m. on Zoom at this link:
https://www.zoomgov.com/j/1604685229pwd=Rldxc1B4bHFNd2dGY1VndVM4bTN3dz09
Information about the drop-in sessions and other resources for families can be found on the Child and Family Behavioral Health webpage.
In 2019, the legislature passed House Bill 2257, which required OHA to convene an advisory group to make recommendations for national accreditation requirements for substance use disorder (SUD) treatment providers.
The advisory group, whose members include a cross-section of providers and partners in Oregon with experience and expertise related to SUD treatment, is exploring a recommendation that OHA require all SUD treatment providers to become accredited within a specified time frame. The advisory group has been weighing their recommendations’ potential effects on SUD treatment providers, OHA and CCO audit units, consumers and other stakeholders.
Implementing the recommended requirements will impact every SUD services provider in Oregon and potentially require providers to make significant changes to their practices. These recommendations would also impact the compliance and quality assurance practices of CCOs and OHA and may require providers to change their internal quality assurance processes.
Because of the high impact of these recommendations, the advisory group is convening listening sessions to seek input from the broader SUD community of stakeholders and hopes to have input from every constituency before the accreditation recommendations are finalized.
Stakeholders from rural and metro regions, small and larger provider agencies, and culturally specific programs are strongly encouraged to attend a virtual session.
The next session will be April 21, 2021, from 5-6 p.m. at this Zoom link:
https://www.zoomgov.com/j/1613803828?pwd=ZE8vWFVLS1h2aTFtZXV4Y0htd1gwdz09
Meeting ID: 161 380 3828. Passcode: 514219
Or call in:
1-669-254-5252
Passcode: 514219
Email Greg Bledsoe at gregory.b.bledsoe@dhsoha.state.or.us with questions or for more information.
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