Longwood University recently received a grant totaling $568,000 from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) for a program that addresses the mental health resource desert in the Southside area. The project, titled the Southside Campus and Community Collaborative for Mental Health Awareness (SCCC-MHA), will establish a mental health training and referral program through partnerships with the goal of increasing mental health services and reducing the stigma surrounding mental health within the community.
Drs. Jen Gerlach and Kat McCleskey lead a team including Public Safety Project Specialist Lt. Stuart Raybold and Stakeholder Coordinator Dr. Angela McDonald. The project includes a network of five public school divisions, local healthcare providers, and the Virginia Department of Health’s Piedmont Health District.
Longwood pursued the Mental Health Awareness Training grant due to the intensive need of mental health services within the Southside community. “We’re in the Southside Virginia region, which is a federally designated mental health desert, so the grant is all about training people who work with kids and adults,” Gerlach, assistant professor in counselor education, states.
“It’s really about providing mental health training and support to our area partners and then creating a network of referral sources, so that if there’s someone that’s in crisis or needs more intensive care, we’re able to have a list of referral options to send them to get more intensive support.”
The project begins with the setup of evidence-based mental health awareness training that will be offered to community members such as teachers, college students, healthcare professionals, campus police, and the general public.
“Our teachers are our eyes and ears in the classroom. Before you send your kids to a school counselor, our teachers are the ones who are seeing the behaviors and so we want to make sure that they are aware of different signs of mental health struggles and disorders,” Gerlach reflects.
McDonald, the Dean of Longwood’s College of Education, Health, and Human Services, emphasizes the importance of the partnership with the school divisions in the Virginia Department of Education’s Superintendent’s Region 8, which includes 12 Southside counties. “This is the latest example of Longwood’s long-time commitment to supporting our local teachers, counselors, and the children and families they serve. We are really looking forward to collaborating with them on this important work.”
An increase in suicide prevention efforts will be established through actions such as social media campaigns, and an increase in mental health resources will be ensured for increased referrals. The project will culminate in the establishment of a wider network of mental health services that the general public will recognize as options for those in need of resources.
According to their website, SAMHSA, the sponsor of the grant, strives to guide and engage in the public promotion of mental health, prevention of substance abuse, and offering of recovery treatments to establish more accessibility to mental health resources. Their efforts serve to improve the overall behavioral health and lives of citizens across the nation.
The program aspires to strengthen the overall wellbeing of the Farmville and Southside communities and to encourage those in need to seek help.
“I would love to see stigma around mental health and things like suicide decreased, and have people feel more comfortable asking the hard questions. I’m hoping that this grant can do a lot of good with providing knowledge and destigmatizing mental health, because it’s hard to talk about some of these things if you’re not trained. That’s my ultimate goal, and I think for us as a grant team, that’s our collective goal as well,” Gerlach concludes.
