Projects
Youth Service Development in Ireland
REACH of Louisville is working with Headstrong, the National Centre for Youth Mental Health, in the planning and evaluation of a new system of supports that will improve the health and well-being of young people in Ireland.
The goals of Headstrong are to:
- promote better integration between multiple services and disciplines to provide better, more rounded care to young people;
- develop the skills and confidence of the youth mental health workforce (youth workers, general practitioners, psychiatrists, counsellors, etc.) enabling them to provide best in class care for young people;
- enhance mental health literacy amongst young people and the wider community;
- reduce public stigma about mental health problems; and,
- to demonstrate the effectiveness of this new model of youth mental health care, providing the evidence and impetus for further support and investment.
REACH is assisting Headstrong by:
- generating useful management-oriented information that contributes to understanding about the problems of adolescents in the Irish experience;
- encouraging the planning, development, and evaluation of community-level initiatives for young people that utilize multi-level, integrated strategies and have the potential to demonstrate broad-based systems change within an evaluable format;
- promoting the development and evaluation of targeted prevention and intervention activities that concentrate on risk and resilience factors for young people;
- facilitating continuous quality improvement of programs and practices in mental health and related areas by making available findings from research and evaluation, and enabling more fine-grained research through the organization of data that can be displayed and understood by programme planners and administrators; and,
- enabling the integration of programs across the community in the service of teamwork, efficient resource allocation, and programme effectiveness.
Kentucky's Strategic Prevention Framework
Kentucky's Strategic Prevention Framework - State Incentive Grant (SPF-SIG) is meant to strengthen community efforts to reduce substance abuse and its consequences. The plan for the Strategic Prevention Framework follows five steps: assessment, capacity building, planning, implementation, and evaluation. During the five year project lifespan, the five steps of the SPF process will be implemented in eight targeted pilot communities that exhibit high rates of substance abuse.
REACH of Louisville has played a key role in the planning and evaluation of the SPF-SIG project. REACH provides monitoring and ongoing assessment of Kentucky’s SPF SIG activities, assesses the overall effectiveness of the SPF initiative, provides recommendations for “course corrections” and needed adjustments as the project unfolds, identifies successful practices and promotes their sustainability, obtains and report data on SAMHSA’s national outcome measures, and provides training and technical assistance at the local level.
Health Access Nurturing Developmental Services (HANDS) Evaluation
HANDs is a voluntary home visiting program designed to assist overburdened first-time parents at critical development points. Beginning in the prenatal clinic or hospital, parents are encouraged to obtain appropriate care. Pre- and post-natally, a trained para-professional or professional visits the home frequently to provide information, problem solve, facilitate parenting skill development, and assist in meeting basic needs such as housing, food, health care, and other required services. HANDS has been designed to replicate and expand on elements that have been shown through research to correlate with positive child and family outcomes. All of Kentucky’s 120 counties now offer the HANDS program, and it has become one of the largest early childhood home visitation program in the nation.
REACH of Louisville is currently conducting the evaluation of the HANDs project, and provides additional analysis including a recent report on program attrition. Utilizing both process and outcome measures, R.E.A.C.H. provides HANDS policy makers and program staff with research products related to the initiative’s four primary goals: (1) positive pregnancy outcomes; (2) optimal child growth and development; (3) health and safety of home environments; and, (4) family long-term planning and decision-making.
Kentucky Substance Abuse Prevention Partnership
REACH of Louisville works closely with the Kentucky MHSA Division's Substance Abuse Prevention Partnership in ongoing efforts to improve planning and evaluation efforts that strengthen substance abuse prevention activities. REACH evaluates and contributes to planning processes for a range of prevention programs, campaigns, and initiatives that include both single-strategy and multi-strategy approaches. Through the Partnership REACH has developed data resources to facilitate needs assessment, planning, and evaluation activities, at both the state and community levels. REACH also provides the Partnership with technical assistance, training, and grant writing expertise.
The priority goals for Kentucky's Substance Abuse Prevention Partnership include:
- Increasing rates of abstinence from substances, especially for high-risk and underage populations;
- Delaying the age of onset of substance use to improve likelihood of responsible use for legal substances (e.g., alcohol, tobacco);
- Reducing levels of heavy use and abuse within high-risk populations; and,
- Reducing the overall number of young people and adults that are using tobacco products, engaging in heavy drinking, and using illicit drugs.
Through the Substance Abuse Prevention Partnership REACH has contributed to programs including:
- School-based education programs such as Lifeskills and Project Alert;
- The Prime for Life alcohol and drug prevention curriculum for adults;
- Local ASAP and Champions for a Drug Free Kentucky groups that help identify community-level needs and resources;
- The SYNAR tobacco sales to minors survey; and,
- The KIP Survey on substance use and school safety administered to students across the Commonwealth.
Evaluation of Substance Abuse Education Programs for Eastern Kentucky
REACH of Louisville is working with the Office of Drug Control Policy, the Kentucky Center for School Safety (KCSS), and the Kentucky School Boards Association (KSBA) in a partnership to evaluate the effectiveness of substance abuse prevention and education strategies for eastern Kentucky schoolchildren. Focusing on students in Clay, Floyd, Harlan, Johnson, Knott, Perry, Pike and Whitely Counties, this pilot project has already provided prevention education to thousands of students in Eastern Kentucky 50 schools.
Family Resource and Youth Services Centers (FRYSC) Evaluation
The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services provides administrative support, technical assistance and training to local school-based Family Resource and Youth Services Centers (FRYSC). The primary goal of these centers is to remove noncognitive barriers to learning as a means to enhance student academic success. Each center offers a unique blend of programs and services determined by the needs of the population being served, available resources, location and other local characteristics.
REACH of Louisville conducted a in-depth evaluation of this program, utilizing a number methods, including: (1) an evaluation workgroup; (2) a management information system for quantitative evaluation; (3) a qualitative implementation assessment; and, (4) training and support functions for program coordinators.
Kentucky IMPACT Evaluation
REACH of Louisville conducted long-term program evaluation for Kentucky IMPACT, an innovative system of care for children’s mental health. The program grew out of the need for more community-based intervention with children who experience serious emotional and behavioral disabilities. The program’s history parallels (and in many ways has led) a national movement toward transforming systems of care for these children and their families. By the year 2000, Kentucky IMPACT had served over 12,000 children, providing a broad range of interventions in an integrated fashion, with strong emphasis on service coordination and collaboration among child-serving organizations and agencies.
