KANSAS CITY, MO – The Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City (HCF) has awarded 34 nonprofit organizations a total of $4,250,000 in Mental Health grants. These grants support community partnerships that focus on advocacy and support of behavioral health services for children and adults, and preventing family violence among the uninsured and underserved.
“HCF is committed to improving access to mental health services through strengthening systems and delivery practices. We are proud to award these agencies funds to support their efforts in providing behavioral health programs,” said Bridget McCandless, M.D., President/CEO of HCF.
In February 2014, HCF released its Mental Health Requests for Proposals (RFP). The Foundation received a total of 73 proposals totaling approximately $12.85 million in requests. The following grants were awarded during the August Board of Directors meeting:
| Agency | Amount Awarded | Project Description |
|---|---|---|
| Associated Youth Services | $91,509 | To help fill a void in accessible, affordable and competent outpatient mental health and psychiatric services for Wyandotte County youth and their families through a collaboration with the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Program at the University Of Kansas School Of Medicine. We will be reaching an underserved segment of the community that would not ordinarily seek out those services because of stigma, fear or mistrust of the system. Case management support will help ensure that clients' questions and concerns are answered and anxiety relieved. |
| Belton School District #124 | $243,637 | HCF funds will support four mental health therapists who will provide school-based individual and family therapy to the underserved population of Belton School District students. |
| Benilde Hall | $45,648 | To provide mental health treatment to mentally ill homeless men. |
| Child Advocacy Services Center, Inc. | $152,700 | To help fund a portion of salaries for the clinical staff who deliver clinical remediation services to the most severally abused and neglected young children in Kansas City. These remediation services target and treat developmental delays, which are a result of maltreatment, so that clients are prepared to function successfully in traditional preschool and kindergarten classrooms, as well as other social settings. |
| Child Protection Center, Inc. | $155,000 | To support the Child Protection Center's Forensic Interview and Family Support Programs for victims of child sexual and physical abuse and their families. |
| Comprehensive Mental Health Services, Inc. | $50,000 | To support a case manager position that will provide case management services to individuals in crisis who are unable to access the Emergency Room Enhancement Program. |
| Crittenton Children's Center | $81,049 | To improve access to evidence-based treatment services for adolescents with co-occurring mental illness and substance abuse, as well as the strengthening of family and community systems. |
| DeLaSalle Education Center | $90,182 | To support DeLaSalle's school-based mental health program that provides therapy, assessment, evaluation, case management, and related mental health services for at least 275 students. |
| First Call Alcohol Drug Prevention and Recovery | $275,000 | To support Kansas City Recovery-Oriented Systems of Care (KCROSC) development of trauma-informed and telehealth resources for uninsured individuals with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders. |
| Gillis Center Inc. | $140,000 | To establish an intake-and-assessment center for children entering custody or disrupting from placement. The program is designed to shorten the time it takes to achieve permanency, reduce the number of placements while in custody and treat trauma symptoms. |
| Health Partnership of Johnson County | $50,000 | To support a behavioral health consultant that will be integrated into primary care teams. |
| Hope House, Inc. | $116,092 | To supports two adult therapists/addictions counselors who provide domestic violence survivors with individual and group therapy, case management, and support groups; an assessment specialist who provides mental health assessments and mental health system navigation to survivors with severe mental illness; and other program-related expenses including contracting with an outside consultant to evaluate the program's design to qualify it as best practice for the target population. |
| Jewish Vocational Service | $100,000 | To provide mental health wrap-around services for refugee and immigrant communities, families and individuals provided through community outreach, education, therapy and case management services. HCF will support social work position that will provide trainings and mental health services. |
| Kansas City CARE Clinic | $200,000 | To support the Clinic in continuing to offer integrated behavioral healthcare--including case management, therapy, and psychiatry--to Kansas City's under/uninsured. |
| Kansas University Endowment Association | $98,975 | To establish the first Primary Care Postdoctoral Fellowship for Psychologists in the KC area, initiate integrated behavioral health training for Family Medicine Residents, and to place psychology interns alongside medical, nursing, and pharmacy students in the Inter-Professional Training Clinic, thereby establishing a seamless progression of integrated care training. |
| KidsTLC, Inc. | $200,000 | To support start-up costs for the development and implementation of a crisis stabilization and respite unit for children and youth. Services will provide a short-term and cost-effective alternative to hospital or PRTF placement or juvenile detention, especially for those who are uninsured and underserved. |
| Legal Aid of Western Missouri | $130,000 | To provide an income through Social Security for persons with mental health issues so that they have stability and may concentrate on mental health treatment. |
| Mattie Rhodes Center | $237,697 | To support salaries and supplies necessary for the implementation of Mattie Rhodes Center's Latino Mental Health services, which provide bilingual intake, service coordination, therapy, psychiatry and support to the low-income, predominately Spanish-speaking community that otherwise disproportionately lack access to these critical services in Kansas City. |
| Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault | $150,000 | To improve the community response to victims and provide counseling to nearly 1,000 children and adults victims of sexual violence and their significant others. |
| Midwest Foster Care & Adoption Association | $91,286 | To develop family-finding services so as to divert more children from entering foster care. |
| National Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Greater Kansas City | $75,000 | To provide access and system navigation assistance to individuals with mental illness and their families. Additionally, it will allow NAMI-KC to provide support and education services to consumers, families, providers and the general community. HCF will support program staff and program expenses. |
| Niles Home for Children | $63,706 | To provide trauma-specific intervention assessments, psychiatric evaluation and follow-up psychiatric consultations, medication review, early intervention, trauma-focused intensive individual, family and group therapy and education, for urban-core youth and their families. |
| Operation Breakthrough, Inc. | $103,895 | To support personnel and other expense for a clinical department of one director and seven clinicians who provide individual and group treatment and preventive services to more than 300 high-risk children and 60-80 parents/caregivers. |
| PACES | $100,000 | To hire two licensed mental health therapists in year one and a third therapist in year two to develop an expedited referral process to outreach parents, and to provide needed therapy or referrals to other services to benefit K-6th graders in elementary schools identified with greatest needs in USD 500, Kansas City, Kan.; to serve as a resource to teachers and staff in these schools. |
| ReDiscover | $199,578 | To support the demand for mental health care by providing critical start-up salary support for clinical and medical professionals. |
| reStart, Inc. | $135,000 | To provide homeless adults, families and unaccompanied youth with on-site, integrated mental health services and referrals to community providers with the goal of helping them improve functioning, increase stability and secure and sustain permanent housing. |
| SAFEHOME, Inc. | $184,910 | To support no-cost, expert mental health services for victims of domestic violence and their children. |
| Sheffield Place | $77,534 |
To serve homeless children and their families by empowering them to heal from trauma and improve children's mental health, family functioning and parenting. |
| Spofford | $65,000 | To provide salary support for seven residential clinical therapist positions that will offer advanced therapy to the children in our care. |
| Sunflower House, Inc. | $36,539 | To support the salary and benefits of one family advocate position to provide ongoing care and support to families with a child recovering from the trauma of child abuse. |
| Synergy Services, Inc. | $120,000 | To support five key licensed therapist positions that will provide best practice, evidence-based clinical care to children in Synergy's Children's Center, CAC, and Family Care outpatient mental health services. |
| The Children's Mercy Hospital | $100,000 | To provide salary support and creation of a shared, centralized database to reduce family violence and improve physical and mental health. |
| Tri-County Mental Health Services, Inc. | $175,000 | To maintain and enhance evidence-based behavioral health services for uninsured children and adults living north of the Missouri River in Kansas City, Mo., while integrating services provided by the Health Care Home. This integration will improve outcomes for those uninsured consumers living with chronic health issues as well as mental health and/or substance abuse issues. |
| Truman Medical Center Charitable Foundation | $115,063 | To provide access to therapy that will help individuals with complex PTSD develop emotional, behavioral and interpersonal skills needed to successfully engage in PTSD treatment. |
The Mental Health grants are the second round of Foundation Defined Grants awarded by HCF in 2014. Safety Net grants will be announced in December.
For more information on applying for HCF Foundation Defined Grants, visit the Foundation's website at hcfgkc.org.