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Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) – Center for Mental Health Services Does your public agency provide mental health services for children and their families? SAMHSA’s Center for Mental Health Services recently opened its 2021 Grants for Expansion and Sustainability of the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children with Serious Emotional Disturbances program (also known as System of Care (SOC) Expansion and Sustainability Grants). This program aims to improve mental health outcomes for children and youth (up to age 21) who have serious emotional disturbances (SED) and for their families. The deadline for applications is coming up quickly on February 5, 2021.

KidsTLC was recently awarded a $50,000 grant from the Health Forward Foundation, Applicant Defined Grant to support in general operating “emergency funds” for the Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facility (PRTF) “Phoenix” Program and Qualified Residential Treatment Program (QRTP), the “Phoenix Sanctuary” residential programs related directly to the COVID-19 crisis.

Department of Labor – Employment and Training Administration Does your organization provide education, occupational skills training, and/or employment services to at-risk youth? The Department of Labor (DOL) – Employment and Training Administration recently opened applications for its YouthBuild program. This program supports organizations that provide pre-apprenticeship services to youth ages 16 to 24, while these at-risk youth perform meaningful work and service within their communities.

As we say goodbye to the year that seemed it would never end, we are looking forward to 2021 with renewed hope. In the spirit of new beginnings, our January blog series is focused on resetting. Be it working from home, adjusting offices to allow for social distancing, or changing jobs altogether, a lot of us unexpectedly found ourselves working in new spaces over the course of the last year. If you’re like some of us, your new workspace might not be what most people consider “permanent” (maybe because, also like us, you were hoping it would be a more temporary solution). Or perhaps you’ve weathered the storm that was 2020 in the same space you’ve worked for years. Either way, the start of the new year is a great excuse to reset, rethink, and reclaim your workspace so you can prepare to take on a new year of possibilities.

Girls in the Know recently received a grant for $25,000 from the Dana Brown Charitable Trust to sponsor the school-based Empowerment Workshop Series for girls in four St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS). Funding will cover staff, materials, and speaker fees for licensed professional women to deliver sessions on empowerment, healthy body image, safety, and puberty.  Trusted adults will engage girls and provide a starting point for conversations at home.

Is your organization looking for project-based funding to support activities that further the arts? The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) recently opened applications for its Grants for Arts Projects program. This program supports public engagement with – and access to – various art forms across a variety of disciplines (dance, folk and traditional, media arts, music, visual arts, etc.), artwork creation, arts education, and integration of the arts into community life.

I’m not the type of person who sends out holiday cards. I want to be that type of person. I feel like I should be that type of person. After all, I love receiving them; the photos of our friends and family and their “year-in-review” recaps always bring a smile to my face. And I grew up with a mom who is great at sending holiday cards. I have vivid memories of her pulling out the notebook filled with addresses, often with amendments and notes penned neatly beside certain names. She’d carefully address and stuff envelopes with a card and letter detailing our family’s updates and accomplishments. By giving my brother and me some editorial power over our own paragraphs (so we could keep our very cool reputations intact) and soliciting our help with the envelope stuffing, she was giving us a primer in relationship maintenance.

It can be difficult to find positive aspects to this year. We don’t need to remind you of all of the unprecedented challenges we’ve experienced so far and will likely continue to live through well into the coming year. Instead, let’s focus on something more hopeful! Let’s spend the rest of this year (and early 2021) on something we may not have found much time for in the past: LEARNING!

Department of Health and Human Services – Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Attention institutions of higher education! The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) recently opened a funding opportunity focused on mental health services for college students. The Garrett Lee Smith (GLS) Campus Suicide Prevention program provides institutions of higher education (IHEs) with funding to develop the infrastructure and sustainable capacity for effective identification, intervention, and suicide prevention programming on college campuses.

This time of year naturally leads people to reflect back and start looking forward, generating new goals and resolutions. Respectfully, I ask, “How is that even possible with a year like 2020?” It’s been a year filled with fear, sadness, uncertainty, confusion, and constant change, to say the least. Even our everyday language has taken on a whole new plethora of words like COVID-19, pandemic, social distance, quarantine, contact tracing, essential businesses, and flattening the curve. By the way, if you are looking for that blog that says better days are ahead, here is my warning: STOP! This blog is about realness – real thoughts, real feelings, real struggles. I wish I could say that I thought of writing this myself, but I am not that bold. I owe it to a great colleague of mine who challenged me to bring out the realness and ugly truths that may help me (and possibly even others) sort this out in my head.