The Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority (Trust) board of trustees recently approved several large grants totaling close to $1.5M to Trust beneficiary serving partner organizations across the state. These grants represent investments in improving behavioral health crisis response in Alaska, and to advance initiatives supporting beneficiary-focused planning efforts and service expansion.
The Trust awards around $20 million a year to Alaska organizations and agencies that help improve outcomes for Trust beneficiaries. Beneficiaries of the Trust include Alaskans who experience mental illness, substance use disorders, developmental and intellectual disabilities, Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementia, and traumatic brain injuries.
The grant awards include:
- Behavioral Health Crisis & Integrated Care Program
$200,000, Maniilaq Association, Kotzebue
Maniilaq is developing a clinical model to address current gaps in behavioral health crisis care, and to help meet the needs of Trust beneficiaries in the region. This program represents the first step in planning and implementing a Crisis Now model adaptation in a rural hub-village, and includes a new, planned crisis stabilization center.
- Ketchikan Crisis Now Community Director
$125,500, Ketchikan Wellness Coalition
This Trust-supported position, housed in the Ketchikan Wellness Coalition, will act as the liaison between key stakeholders and direct efforts to improve behavioral health crisis response in the community.
- Integrated Parenting & Family Support Services Project
$265,000, Southcentral Foundation, Statewide
The goal of this project is to support the mental health and parenting skills of families with young children and to increase the early detection of developmental delay through integrated family support services for families.
- Therapeutic Foster Care Expansion and Sustainability
$400,000, Community Connections, Inc., Ketchikan
The Trust is supporting the expansion and sustainability of Community Connections’ Therapeutic Foster Care program through helping fund the purchase of two additional 3–5 bedroom agency-owned foster homes, one in Ketchikan and one on Prince of Wales Island.
- Traumatic and Acquired Brain Injury (TABI) Plan for Identification, Intervention, and Assessment of Capacity and Infrastructure Building
$500,000, Southcentral Foundation, Statewide
The project creates and implements processes for early identification and intervention services for traumatic and acquired brain injury (TABI) to ensure individuals with TABIs are identified and provided supportive services at the earliest point in time possible to maximize their quality of life post-injury.
“We’re pleased to be able to deploy Trust resources to projects like these that will have a significant and positive impact on our communities and our beneficiary populations,” said Steve Williams, CEO of the Trust. “We appreciate the work of our grantees, and other partners across Alaska who are working to improve our system of care for Trust beneficiaries.”
Trust grantees include organizations, including nonprofits, state and local agencies and providers, that promote system change and work to improve the lives and circumstances of Trust beneficiaries.
Learn more about Trust grant opportunities.: https://alaskamentalhealthtrust.org/about/grants/