NYU Child Study Center: Bridges Program Caring Across Communities: Annual Grantee Meeting April

Bridges: Mission The mission of Bridges is to enhance the well-being of young children attending our partner NYC public schools. We aim to do this by:  creating and implementing a training program for school staff  teaching/modeling of evidence-based and culturally competent strategies  providing monthly parent workshops 2

Bridges: Target Population The 5 target elementary schools are:  located in urban, socioeconomically- disadvantaged communities in Brooklyn, NY  the majority of school staff is White  approximately 90% of students are non-Latino Black  70% are Afro-Caribbean and 20% are African American.  Afro-Caribbean students come from immigrant families from Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Haiti, Grenada, and St Lucia. 3

Bridges: Model Overview 4 GOALPLAN Universal mental health prevention in the classroom -offered by teachers to 1,500 1st grade students Professional Development Days:  Increase knowledge and understanding of childhood mental health, cultural competence and ethnic socialization Consultation/Classroom observations with teachers and guidance counselors:  effective classroom behavior management

Bridges: Model Overview 5 GOALPLAN Screening/early identification of students with emerging mental health needs -offered by teachers to 1,500 1st grade students Consultations with teachers and guidance counselors:  Increase knowledge of childhood mental health  Behavior Management strategies  Referral process

Bridges: Model Overview 6 GOALPLAN Individual mental health treatment -offered by MHPs to an estimated st graders Referral Process  evidence-based and culturally competent individual or group treatment services for children with identified mental health problems Resource Binder  Compiled binder with local resources

Bridges: Model Overview 7 GOALPLAN Parent Meetings -offered by teachers and MHPs for parents of 150 1st graders in treatment): Consultations with teachers and guidance counselors:  Parent meetings with teachers when first identified as needing help  Follow up meetings with MHPs to allow parents to participate in and facilitate treatment

Bridges: Model Overview 8 GOALPLAN Prevention workshops for parents to promote mental health and school achievement -offered by Parent Coordinators and Bridges consultants to 1,500 parents of 1st graders Monthly Parent Workshops:  ethnic socialization in the home to promote children’s ethnic identity Parent Representatives & Parent Coordinators working as partners:  School-family partnerships Community Representatives:  Community-family partnerships

Bridges: Addressing Stigma School Staff Professional Development Days: MMental Health UUnderstanding mental health within the context of early childhood NNature versus nurture BBehavior Management Strategies CClassroom Environment MModeling/Classroom Assistance 9

Consultation:  Identifying students with behavioral problems  Understanding what those behaviors mean  Teaching/Modeling behavior management strategies  Referral Process Bridges: Addressing Stigma 10

Parent Workshops:  Risk factors  Protective factors  Proactive strategies to build a strong ethnic identity  Family & school partnership Bridges: Addressing Stigma 11

 Enhanced classroom environments and increase school staff knowledge and skills related to the mental health needs of their students  A culturally sensitive school climate and increase in school staff knowledge and skills related to the cultural diversity of their students and their families  Pre, Post and End of the Year evaluations assess school staffs’ MH knowledge, classroom strategies, cultural competence and ethnic socialization. Bridges: Expected Outcomes 12

Bridges: Expected Outcomes  Strengthen the connection between schools and community agencies  Increased parent involvement in school-based treatment services, schools and communities  Promoted family’s use of ethnic socialization and therefore students’ ethnic identity  School staff evaluations ask questions regarding parental involvement  Parental attendance to workshops will be examined  Parent evaluations of ethnic socialization  Child ethnic identity interviews 13

Bridges: Challenges  Perceived Principal/administrative buy-in and support  Teachers’ ability to add consultation to his/her workload  Trying to pull in overwhelmed mental health professionals in school  Cultural differences between school staff, NYU staff and target population  Connecting two major segments of project- mental health and ethnic socialization  Better understanding of referral process  Parent workshop timing  Effective qualities of parent representative 14

Bridges: Successes  ParentCorps history  Relationship of Principal Investigator with schools  Principal/Administrative buy-in and support  Bridges Team  Clinicians: experts on mental health  Community Representatives: community resources and support  Parent Representatives: parental and cultural perspective  Clear theoretical framework of project  Mixture of observations and consultations to see implementation progress  Peer and individual supervision of clinicians 15

Bridges: Thank you! 16