KANSAS CITY, MO –The Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City (HCF) has awarded 28 non-profit organizations a total of $4.7 million in mental health grants. Many of the grants awarded address the integration of physical and mental health care, finding innovative ways to treat children and families struggling with behavioral health issues and providing prevention and treatment services for victims of domestic violence and child abuse.
"When the economy is struggling and governments face major fiscal challenges, mental and behavioral health funding can become scarce," said Steve Roling, President/CEO of the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City. "Unfortunately, these are the times when mental health services are most needed, with many agencies experiencing an increase in demand for services. HCF is pleased to award these organizations with grants to help maintain and expand mental health services for the uninsured and underserved."
HCF released its mental health request for proposals in February. The Foundation received a total of 79 proposals totaling $17.3 million in requests. The following grants were selected by a team of external reviewers from outside the HCF service area and awarded at the August HCF Board of Directors meeting.
Agency |
Amount Awarded | Project Description |
| Belton School District #124 | $220,218 | To provide school-based mental health services to students of the Belton School District through ACCESS (Appropriate Clinical Care Engaged in the School Setting) Program |
| Benilde Hall | $50,000 | To provide psychiatric assessment and treatment programming for homeless men with the co-occurring disorders of substance abuse and mental illness. |
| Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Kansas City | $36,475 | To support alcohol use/abuse prevention program with 200 urban low-income teens who are vulnerable and at-risk. |
| Child Protection Center, Inc. | $140,000 | To provide funding for the clinical director, two forensic interviewers, the receptionist and 50 percent of the salary of the intake coordinator who will provide forensic interview services to alleged victims of child abuse and their families from Jackson and Cass counties in Missouri served at the Child Protection Center. |
| Community Network for Behavioral Healthcare, Inc. (CommCare) | $477,782 | To improve access to community-based health and behavioral health services for persons with psychiatric and addiction disorders who frequent emergency rooms and inpatient facilities. |
| DeLaSalle Education Center Truman Medical Center, KU School of Social Welfare, Avila University |
$86,533 | To support DeLaSalle's school-based mental health therapy, evaluation, case management, and related mental health services for at least 230 students. |
| El Centro, Inc. | $150,000 | To continue the work El Centro, Inc. does with underserved immigrant women and families who are victims of domestic violence, enabling them to move from victim to survivor. |
| First Call Alcohol Drug Prevention and Recovery Mattie Rhodes, COMBAT, KCMO Municipal Drug Court, Samuel U. Rodgers Health Center |
$224,000 | To support Kansas City Recovery-Oriented Systems of Care (KCROSC) expansion to 15 community mental health, substance abuse and wrap-around service agencies working together to streamline treatment and sustainability of recovery for uninsured individuals with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders. |
| Friends of Yates | $180,099 | This program will ensure that survivors of domestic violence experiencing abuse-related trauma and/or living with mental health and substance abuse have access to needed services. |
| Gordon Parks Elementary School | $75,615 | To support the positions of two licensed clinical social workers and a behavior intervention specialist who will provide in-depth mental health therapies and behavior management services for at-risk, urban core children. |
| Hope House, Inc. | $105,875 | To support two women's therapists who will provide therapy and substance abuse counseling to survivors of domestic violence and an assessment specialist that will provide support and advocacy to survivors with serious mental illness. |
| Jewish Vocational Service | $125,000 | To improve outcomes utilizing evidence based practices for adolescents, transition age youth (18-25) and older adults with co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders. |
| Johnson County Mental Health MATTC, Chestnut Health Systems |
$250,000 | To improve outcomes utilizing evidence based practices for adolescents, transition age youth (18-25) and older adults with co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders. |
| KidsTLC, Inc. (formerly known asTLC for Children and Families, Inc.) | $228,944 | To hire mental health professionals to begin outpatient therapeutic services. This mental health service will be extended to existing clients as well as to all people with or without insurance, providing a safety net of timely therapy and medication management for anyone suffering with mental illness. |
| Lexington R-V School District | $51,193 | To support primary and early intervention services in a rural community, including therapeutic groups for students, parenting education and professional training for educators. |
| Mattie Rhodes Center | $225,000 | To enable MRC to continue to serve the low-income, under- and uninsured Latino community with critical bilingual mental health support (intake, individual and group therapy, and service integration). |
| Midwest Foster Care & Adoption Association | $250,000 | To support the work of extreme recruitment investigators and recruiters who will improve mental health functioning and outcomes by reconnecting foster youth, at risk of aging out of the system, with relatives and kin for support and finding, for those youth, a forever home. |
| National Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Greater Kansas City | $164,040 | To support care coordination positions to improve access to community-based mental health services for persons with mental illness and their families. |
| Operation Breakthrough, Inc. | $400,000 | To help support OB's clinical staff of seven therapists in providing mental health and psychiatric services to the low-income, high-risk children enrolled at Operation Breakthrough and to their parents/caregivers. |
| Pathways Community Behavioral Healthcare, Inc. | $160,000 | To support the following positions: 1.0 FTE psychiatrist, 1.0 FTE licensed clinical professional, 0.5 FTE nurse liaison and 0.5 FTE mental health first aid trainer, including the cost of training manuals, to provide needed behavioral healthcare services and outreach targeted at the underserved, underinsured and uninsured individuals of Cass and Lafayette counties. |
| reStart, Inc. | $99,908 | To support 1.25 FTE therapists and a .5 FTE clinical case manager to provide underserved homeless adults, youth and families with mental health assessments, on-site therapy and counseling, and referrals to community-based providers. |
| Rose Brooks Center, Inc. | $150,000 | To support outreach services that can remove barriers and provide care to the thousands of victims that are either living with the abusive partner, live in an abusive home, have left the abusive relationship, or desire to continue supportive services after leaving emergency shelter. |
| SAFEHOME, Inc. | $100,000 | To enable SAFEHOME to provide 1) no-cost, essential, high-quality mental health services for victims of domestic violence and their children and 2) to increase the capacity of the agency to provide crisis intervention and long term therapeutic healing. |
| Sheffield Place | $49,318 | To support therapist positions that will provide mental health services to homeless mothers and children |
| Swope Health Services | $350,000 | To support a pilot project to comprehensively integrate primary care and behavioral health services, which will enable SHS to diagnose and connect patients to all the medical, behavioral health and related support services they need to thrive. |
| The Children's Mercy Hospital | $100,000 | To support two full-time clinicians and one part-time clinician to provide trauma focused therapeutic services to children and families who have experienced some sort of trauma. |
| Tri-County Mental Health Services, Inc. | $175,000 | Will provide evidence-based, integrated counseling, case management and medication management services, including client and family psycho-education and support to uninsured, Kansas City residents with co-occurring mental health and substance use conditions. |
| Wyandot Inc. | $75,000 | To expand the capacity of area community mental health centers to offer mental health first aid to the Kansas City area. |
The Mental Health grants are the second Foundation Defined Grants (FDGs) awarded by the Foundation in 2012. Safety Net Health Care grants will be announced in December 2012. For more information, visit the Foundation’s website at www.hcfgkc.org.