Recognizing Success: CalMHSA PEI Report
During the 2015-2016 fiscal year, CalMHSA’s Each Mind Matters movement and 42 counties worked together to collectively pool a percentage of Mental Health Service Act (Prop 63) Prevention and Early Intervention (PEI) funding execute the first year of the Statewide PEI Project. San Mateo County contributed $90,508 in PEI funding to the Statewide PEI Project. Leveraging these funds enabled the following six local agencies to receive support: San Mateo County BHRS, San Mateo Office of Education, San Mateo County Youth Commission, Summit Public Schools, Skyline College, and the College of San Mateo.
This Statewide PEI Project supported programs such as maintaining and expanding social marketing campaigns, creating new outreach materials for diverse communities, expanding the capacities of higher education schools to address stigma reduction and suicide prevention, and providing technical assistance and outreach resources to counties, schools, and community based organizations.
Technical assistance was a critical part of the Statewide PEI Project efforts to increase resources within each county through an assigned Resource Navigator. First, San Mateo County’s Resource Navigator helped BHRS staff to discuss student mental health by connecting them to Dr. Patrick Arbor to explore suicide prevention for older adults and increased the outreach capacity for the county’s portion of the Know the Signs website (www.suicideispreventable.org/). It was with the help of the Resource Navigator that the Office of Diversity and Equity increased their efforts to disseminate information and promotional materials regarding Each Mind Matters, Know the Signs, and the Directing Change Program Film Contest, resulted in over 3,800 outreach materials and programs being shared throughout the county.
Specifically looking at Directing Change Program and Film Contest, there were a total of two films entered during the 2016 season: one from the San Mateo County Youth Commission, and the other from Summit Public Schools (view one of last year’s submissions: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyuT4MqTN-I). Comparatively, the 2017 submissions for the film season increased to seven! While this is significant progress, ODE’s focus is shifting to creating an atmosphere that keeps Directing Change Program and Film Contest on the minds of schools and programs all year long, and our first step is to begin a tradition of hosting a celebratory regional film screening in May!
Visit the following links to learn more about the five other agencies supported by the Statewide PEI Project:
San Mateo Office of Education, San Mateo County Youth Commission, Summit Public Schools, Skyline College, and the College of San Mateo
Written by: Chenece Blackshear