The Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission has awarded
Sacramento County Behavioral Health Services with more than $4 million dollars in grant funding as part of Senate Bill (SB) 82 Investment in Mental Health Wellness Act second round crisis triage grant funds.
Sacramento is one of 14 counties to receive this second round grant funding aimed at increasing mental health crisis triage services for Transition Age Youth (TAY), ages 16-25 years.
“As we continue to build out our crisis services continuum, we are including more services targeted at Transition Age Youth,” says Uma Zykofsky, Sacramento County Behavioral Health Director. “Youth, ages 16-25, have unique needs; existing children’s mental health services typically no longer meet their needs and they are not yet ready for adult services.”
This funding will allow Sacramento County to enhance the current array of mental health services specific to the TAY population by providing immediate, recovery-focused crisis interventions with the goal of diverting individuals to appropriate levels of care. Through a community needs assessment, several TAY service gaps were identified, including geographically available crisis services and field-based crisis services.
The new program, Youth Help Network, aims to close these identified service gaps. The program will place field based triage navigators and peers in the community where homeless and housed TAY are known to congregate and at community-based organizations that serve the TAY population. Triage navigators and peers will provide crisis intervention, support, and rapid linkage to the County Mental Health Plan (MHP). The program will target vulnerable underserved populations such as LGBTQ youth, commercially sexually exploited youth, youth served by Child Welfare, and other youth from culturally and ethnically diverse communities.
"This grant is very important to Sacramento County. We are making great strides in creating a more complete responsive continuum of care for Transition Age Youth/Young Adults in our community,” adds Zykofsky “This grant helps bring all the components together."
