The main goal of Justice, Potential and Motivation for Adolescents is to reduce impact in the community by providing an intervention and prevention program to high school students who are suffering from mental health issues and substance abuse. This program will provide equal access for all students, regardless of disability, gender, race, religion, and/or sexual orientation. Consent forms will be reviewed and signed by parents of student 17 years and younger. Participants will be allowed to withdraw consents at any time during the program.
If a student decided to drop out of the program or are absent for 10 days they will be replaced by another student on the waiting list. The program is voluntarily. Group sessions and individual counseling will be provided. However, there will be referrals made to other community resources as determined necessary.
We will be choosing a total of 60 students from American Senior High School to participate in the program. We will select 20 student from each grade level (9th-12th grade) based on the severity of their needs, who are currently suffering from mental health issues and/or substance abuse.
In order to identify these individuals the following assessments will be needed: Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scales (DASS21), Psycho Social Wellbeing Scale (PSWS), Emotional Assessment Scales (EAS), Social Interaction Assessment Scale (SISST), Short Form Health Survey (SF20), Index of Alcohol involvement (IAI) and Index of Drug Involvement (IDI) Scales. We will use these assessments for comparing results at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year.
This program will be conducted at the American Senior High School.
Two large classrooms will be utilized for the participants and the program throughout the entire school year. There will be a two Licensed Mental Health Counselors who will facilitate group sessions and individual counseling. Each counselor will be assigned 30 students and will lead two group sessions with fifteen students in each group. Each group session will be conducted for an hour and a half each day of the week. A total of three hours will be utilized by each counselor for group sessions. The main focus of the group session is mental health interventions and substance abuse preventions. Individual counseling sessions will be available the remaining five hours and lead by the Licensed Mental Health Counselors on a first come, first serve basis or by appointment. Individual counseling follow-up schedules will be discussed and reviewed daily during sessions.
“A day in the life” of a participant in our program will include about an hour and a half of group therapy, during group sessions the License Mental Health Counselor will provide 45 minutes of intervention and prevention services, learning healthier coping strategies and making better decisions when dealing with mental health services issues. This session will include identifying and understanding mental health diagnosis, recognizing signs & symptoms and the importance of follow-up care. Participants are able to engage in group discussions throughout the session. The following 45 minutes will be include psychosocial activities such as mindfulness exercises, journaling, breathing techniques, meditation, and relaxation activities. In addition, the Licensed Mental Health Counselor will facilitate a substance abuse group session for 45minutes focusing on coping skills, stress management skills, and community support groups availability to help maintain their sobriety. Students in the program who have already been identified by the American high School Counselor for individual counseling sessions. This will be provided with a one hour a week individual counseling session outside their daily curriculum schedule. Once the plan of operation is successfully implemented students will be able to identify their individualized objectives to their treatment plan, focusing on interventions and prevention strategies. They will be able to make better decisions when dealing with stressful challenges. Participants in the program will have a better understanding of mental health illness including, signs, symptoms and positive coping skills. Students will be able to identify resources available throughout the community and will be able to use the acquired knowledge on using interventions. Participants will also be able to better manage their mental health issues and/or abstain from substance abuse. Overall, students will have made improvements in comparison to the beginning of the program.
Alcoholic and Narcotic Sponsors will provide a 45 minutes session once a week for free. The Fresh Start Program will provide students with free prevention and community resources referral. Students will be able to search the web and/ or app for immediate assistance whenever they feel they are experiencing a crisis outside the school setting. The Wings Stop Restaurant of Miami Lakes will provide free chicken wings, healthy snacks bars, fruits, veggies and drinks for the students daily. The YMCA of Greater Miami will provide art sessions, book clubs and physical activities 3x’s per week. Job Corp of Miami Gardens will provide student with the skills and educational opportunities they need to establish job careers. Hialeah Walmart Supercenter will donate supplies for the two counselor’s offices.
The American Senior High School Psychologist will provide supervision to the Licensed Mental Counselors. There will be two Licensed Mental Health Counselors, who would be facilitating CBT and Mindfulness group sessions. Two cohorts are available per LMHC, 30 students will be assigned to each LMHC for group sessions that consist of 15 students. Each LMHC will provide prevention and intervention groups to the students of their cohort totaling 60 high school students. The counselors will work together to provide each student with their assessment test and compare results from start, middle and end of program. The counselor are responsible for providing the parents of the participants with consent forms and will be required to keep all student information confidential and locked in a file cabinet. The counselors will be responsible for their documentation and returning phone calls in a timely manner.
The requested budget from the Minority Fellowship Program, is $150, 000. Each Licensed Mental Health Counselor will be paid $50,000 salary annually. We will be purchasing 30 Apple iPad Pro tablets with a smart folio cover for each tablet for the total price of $32,000. Each iPad is $1066 and each smart folio iPad cover is $100. This will be used by students to complete their assessments at the start, middle and end of the program. Each tablet will be installed with an automatic assessment configuration. The students are also going to use the tablets for mental health and substance abuse research purposes and to download useful applications into the tablets such as the app available by the community resource center. Students will also use the tablets for coping skills and relaxation techniques such as meditation and guided imagery. We are going to purchase 60 yoga mats for $13 a total of $780 and 60 journals for $10 a total of $600. We are going to transform a traditional classroom setting into a relaxed, stress free and calm environment.
We will have a remaining of $6,280 which will be used for miscellaneous materials for classrooms supplies throughout the school year such as; two printers, copy paper, books, magazines, posters, markers, and flyers for mental health awareness and substance abuse prevention throughout the year. We will provide each student with a customized T-shirts with our “Justice, Potential and Motivation for Adolescents” logo. We are going to celebrate the student’s birthdays each month and /or accomplishments. Additionally, we will provide other schools with a dissemination plan for them to implement this project in their schools.
The effectiveness and success of this program will be measured by the progress of students with mental health and substance abuse issues, these were especially selected as described in the selection criteria. In order to measure the progress we first have to define substance abuse and mental health illness. According to the Helpguide, “when you have both a substance abuse and a mental health issue this is called a co-occurring disorder or dual diagnosis. In co-occurring disorders, both the mental health issue and the drug or alcohol addiction have their own unique symptoms that may get in the way of your ability to function at work or school, maintain a stable home life, handle life’s difficulties, and relate to others” (Saisan, 2019).
According to 2019 SAMHSA report, “Substance use disorders occur when the recurrent use of alcohol and/or drugs causes clinically significant impairment, including health problems, disability, and failure to meet major responsibilities at work, school, or home.” To monitor progress, two assessments will be provided to each participant to measure for drug and alcohol at the start, middle and end of the year.
Mental Illness can be define as mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder that interferes with a person functioning at home, school, work, and /or relationships. According to 2017 Newport Academy, “one in five teens has a diagnosable mental health disorder, such as depression or anxiety”. To measure progress for Mental Illness, we will provide each student with assessment scales at the start, middle and end of the year.
As stated previously, the overall goal of Justice, Potential and Motivation for Adolescents is to develop and implement a prevention program for adolescent suffering from mental health and/or substance abuse issues. To accomplish these goals we have four objectives. The first objective is to decrease alcohol and drug disorder. This will be measured using the Index of Alcohol involvement (IAI) and Index of Drug Involvement (IDI) Scales. The activities provided to the students will include a collaboration with Alcoholic and Narcotics Anonymous Sponsors who will review the 12 steps towards sobriety. We will provide students and parent with steps to prevent alcohol and drug use. Our second objective is to increase mental health prevention, we will discuss the different types of mental health diagnoses, signs and symptoms, resources availability in the community and make referrals. This objective will be measured using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scales (DASS21). Our third objective is to identify problems areas student need to focus on when dealing with mental illness. This objective will be measured using the Psycho Social Wellbeing Scale (PSWS). We provide student and parent’s ways to identify and monitor signs of depression. Our fourth objective is to increase physical, emotional and social need of the students. We will be measuring this using 3 different scales, the Short Form Health Survey (SF20), the Emotional Assessment Scales (EAS), and the Social Interaction Assessment Scale (SISST).
In addition, we want to measure the success of the project by receiving feedback from our students. A satisfactory and recommendation survey will be given to each student using the Apple iPad at the end of the school year for feedback. The Client Satisfactory Questionnaire (CSQ-*) will be used for measurement.
Once the project is completed at the end of the year, we will review all the assessments and compare the findings. The assessments will be provided to students at the beginning of the year for placement into the program and at the middle of the year for progress and at the end of the year for overall progress. Whether or not our findings were effective in reducing the impact of mental health and substance abuse disorders, we want to share this information with other schools to implement the program and/or improve the program for years to come. We will release our dissemination plan to the newsletters, social networks, and websites. Justice, Potential and Motivation for Adolescents will like to find new ways in which we can improve the program to utilize it in every high school throughout Florida.
References
- Bradbury, A. (2019, April 13). Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders.
- Retrieved from https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/disorders
- Authors: Joanna Saisan, M.S.W., Melinda Smith, M.A., Lawrence Robinson, and Jeanne Segal, Ph.D. Last updated: October 2019 Saisan, Smith, Robinson, Segal (2019, October).
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health Issues. (2020, February 14).
- Retrieved from https://www.helpguide.org/articles/addictions/substance-abuse-and-mental-health.htm
- Monroe, J. (2019, January 10). A Guide to Teen Mental Disorders.
- Retrieved from https://www.newportacademy.com/resources/mental-health/teen-mental-disorders/
- Mental Health in Adolescents. Content last reviewed on February 24, 2017 – Office of Adolescent Health (2017, February 24). Retrieved from website https://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/adolescent-development/mental-health/index.html
- Minority Fellowship Program Grant (2016)
- Retrieved from website https://www.samhsa.gov/minority-fellowship-program
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