Tag: COVID-19

National Alliance on Mental Illness Southeast Wisconsin, Inc (NAMI SEWI), was awarded a grant to adapt and expand the capacity of the “Compassion Resilience Toolkit,” a resource for parents and caregivers supporting youth with mental health needs. In partnership with Rogers Behavioral Health, this project will establish caregiver groups and facilitator trainings, to create psychologically safe spaces for skill development and resilience building. As a result, parents and caregivers will have the tools to minimize compassion fatigue and increase their ability to support their children facing mental health challenges as they move through and beyond the pandemic. In addition, the team will partner with Milwaukee’s Core El Centro to recruit Spanish-speaking parents/caregivers to train as group facilitators.

GSAFE, an organization working to create school communities where all LGBTQ youth and students thrive, has received a grant to deliver critically needed social-emotional supports to some of the most vulnerable adolescents in Wisconsin. This project aims to support BIPOC, Trans, Nonbinary LGBTQ+ adolescents impacted by COVID-19 through new programs and resources that expand pathways to youth leadership and increase educators’ ability to provide affirming and inclusive classrooms and schools.

PATCH Youth Advocacy Fellowship for Social and Emotional Health aimed to engage Wisconsin youth as key partners and experts in addressing the social and emotional health (SEH) impacts of COVID-19. PATCH (Providers and Teens Communicating for Health), is a Wisconsin-based program that aims to improve adolescent health and well-being by engaging, educating and empowering youth and adults to partner for positive change. The PATCH Youth Advocacy Fellowship successfully completed two years of programming, offering 25 youth a 10-month opportunity to gain skills and lead community advocacy projects, such as creating widely adopted suicide response policies for schools. The fellows consulted with over 30 organizations and contributed their voices and perspectives to a number of events typically reserved for adults. Comprehensive evaluation led to the fellowship’s replication in Ohio and the launch of the PATCH Alumni Impact Study. The PATCH Youth Advocacy Fellowship, now renamed the PATCH Teen Consultant Program, continues to empower youth and expand opportunities for meaningful engagement in health advocacy.

This project, led by La Crosse County Human Services, aimed to enhance the La Crosse System of Care (SOC) through the addition of two part-time community cultural liaisons to help address the social and emotional health needs of adolescents. The La Crosse SOC supports youth by prioritizing mental health, safety and self-sufficiency over punitive measures, through a partnership between the School District of La Crosse and La Crosse County. Nearly 50 percent of referred youth are racially diverse, highlighting the need for more cultural liaisons to address current racial tensions and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on minority communities. The project successfully improved the La Crosse SOC and advanced adolescents’ social and emotional health by forming meaningful connections between 49 Black youth and caring adults. This led to improved school attendance, participation in activities and greater parental involvement. The project also increased workforce diversity and community support capacity by adding cultural liaison positions. Finally, La Crosse County Human Services strengthened and expanded networks and partnerships which created opportunities for youth and supported parents and caregivers.

Rachel Gicquelais, PhD, assistant professor, UW–Madison School of Nursing, and co-principal investigator Ryan Westergaard, MD, PhD, MPH, associate professor, Department of Medicine, used a COVID-19 Response grant to address the dual epidemics of COVID-19 and drug overdose. With a focus on rural Wisconsin residents, the goal of this project was to understand patterns of overdose risk, COVID-19 vaccine willingness, and related attitudes and behaviors. Investigators also tested a novel mobile health intervention to support vaccine uptake in people who inject drugs.

This project, led by the UW Population Health Institute, aimed to analyze data relating to Milwaukee County’s rapid dissemination of $77.4 million in COVID-19 relief funding in order to assess investments addressing social determinants of health and racial equity strategies. Milwaukee County was the first municipal government in the country to declare racism a public health crisis and was among the first to collect race and ethnicity data that helped guide efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in communities of color. The project team successfully assessed Milwaukee County’s investments in social determinants of health and racial equity strategies, collaborating with county leaders and analyzing funding data from state claims and federal expense reports. Their analysis showed that Milwaukee County made significant efforts to ensure equity for marginalized populations affected by COVID-19, particularly through the $12 million Small Business Recovery Grant program. This program distributed grant monies to minority, woman and veteran-owned businesses, with 66% of the 1,551 grant recipients falling into these categories. Additionally, the Milwaukee County Department of Administrative Services Economic Development Division created an interactive map to visualize the locations of funded businesses.

Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers, the largest provider of outpatient behavioral health services for families requiring bilingual care in Milwaukee, will engage a youth advisory council and community partners in the testing and scaling of group treatment options for youth, as well as corresponding support groups for parents and guardians. By leveraging successful in-person groups, Sixteenth Street is uniquely situated to investigate the effectiveness of the virtual group therapy model for youth, for which there is currently limited supportive evidence.

The YWCA in Madison will use its grant to support healing for Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) and marginalized youth who experienced trauma due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This project will focus on continuing, expanding and evaluating the YWCA’s partnerships within Madison/Dane County schools and communities to address the impact of COVID-19.