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The National Center for Adoption Competent Mental Health Services aims to improve mental health outcomes for children and families impacted by child welfare by providing technical assistance that bridges the gap between child welfare and mental health systems. The National Center prioritizes the need for specialized mental health services for children and families who have experienced the child welfare system. We have seen a positive impact when mental health professionals have the skills, knowledge, and strategies to meet the complex needs of our most vulnerable youth. Leveraging this expertise, we can now build bridges between child welfare and mental health systems and enhance the workforce’s capacity nationally. We hope to address the mental health crisis plaguing our nation and ensure accessible and evidenced-informed mental health services that meets the needs of all children and families. The National Center will build on and expand the impact and momentum of our work leading the National Adoption Competency Mental Health Training Initiative (NTI) since 2014 training child welfare and mental health providers.
The need:
Poor mental health outcomes for children and youth who have experienced child welfare
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- Up to 80% of children in foster care have experienced significant mental health issues
- Approximately 60% of children who have experienced foster care have lifelong mental health disorders
The Center’s Goals and Objectives
Lead a national center with the expertise and evidence-informed training and technical assistance (TA) services that will support and build the capacity of the States, Tribes, and territories (STTs) in building the adoption competence of mental health practitioners and in forming strong alliances with the mental health community to improve accessibility of mental health services that are responsive to the needs of all youth in the care of the child welfare system and in adoption/guardianship homes.
Ensure the Center is a comprehensive repository of knowledge and best practices that will benefit and build the capacity of all STTs.
Support the on-site work in STTs to build alliances with the mental health system and support improved access to adoption competent mental health services.
Establish and maintain a user-friendly repository of knowledge, peer learning experiences, and usable tools, universally accessible to a wide range of audiences, on best practices related to the provision of adoption competent mental health services and learnings from the National Center TA work.
Develop, curate, and disseminate authoritative information and effective tools on culturally responsive and linguistically appropriate adoption competent mental health services.
Provide intensive, on-site TA to 6 STTs each year (30 over the 5-year grant period).
Assist STTs to enhance the capacity of child welfare and mental health systems to effectively engage and build collaborations to increase utilization of existing evidence-informed adoption competent training, improve accessibility and delivery of adoption competent mental health services.
Support sustainability in all STTs for adoption competent mental health services and collaboration between child welfare and mental health systems
Integrate the knowledge and expertise of youth/young adults and families with lived experience in all aspects of work.
Apply and advance a racial and broader equity lens across all aspects of work.
Collaborate with other Children’s Bureau-supported projects and efforts and with other efforts working within TA sites to increase the impact of the Center’s work and the Children’s Bureau’s investments in multiple initiatives.