Approved County Innovation Projects FY 2023-24

Commission Amount County Name Innovation Project Name Project Description Approval Date Approved Santa Clara County seeks to create the Transgender, Non-Binary, and Gender Expansive (TGE) Center, which will be a space that provides comprehensive services and supports for the local TGE community. Using a community-informed approach, the project will establish a Steering Committee consisting of people with lived experience, community-based organizations, and TGE allies to oversee design of the physical space and to inform project activities. The TGE Center will provide healing, wellness, and stability to TGE county residents through a variety of services and resources including, but not limited to: respite drop-in services; peer- driven non-clinical crisis supports; referrals to culturally affirming behavioral health services and community organizations; kinship circles, support groups, and wellness activities; employment development opportunities and computer stations; solutions for families and Santa Clara TGE Center 7/27/2023 $11,938,639 caretakers; and a clothing closet. San Luis Obispo County would like to test and pilot the use of a Multi- Disciplinary Behavioral Health Team (EMBRACE Team) who will work in partnership with participating Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly (RCFE). These teams will consist of a Behavioral Health Clinician, a Peer Advocate, and a Program Coordinator. RCFEs are licensed through Department of Social Services; however, there are no requirements for staff to be trained to recognize mental health symptoms in older adults. Only recognizing signs of dementia are required of RCFE staff. The EMBRACE Team will provide on-call support, early intervention Embracing Mental & Behavioral consultations, system navigation, and education and training for facility Health for Residential Adult staff so that older adults living in these RCFEs can receive proper care and San Luis Obispo Care & Education (EMBRACE) 9/28/2023 $860,000 treatment. The Crisis Now Multi-County Innovation project presents Santa Cruz County and subsequent participant counties with an innovative opportunity to complement and strengthen their crisis response systems in a manner aligned to the Crisis Now Model, while allowing for flexibility in the context of competing priorities and challenges. This project aims to Crisis Now Multi-County construct a model that is tailored to the unique needs of California, Santa Cruz Innovation Plan 9/28/2023 $4,544,656 offering both fidelity to the Crisis Now Model and flexibility. Amador County – consistent with the entire State – is facing extreme workforce challenges that impede their ability to deliver services and support. At the request of Amador’s community partners and stakeholders, the County has been asked to prioritize the recruitment and retention of behavioral health professionals. The County states they would create an Innovations Team that would be responsible for holding and facilitating key focus groups and development of surveys that would allow the community to shape this project by bringing the most supported ideas forward to recruit and retain behavioral health professionals. Additionally, the creation of the Innovations Team would oversee the planning and implementation of this project. In brainstorming ideas to address this challenge, Amador County has identified a few potential solutions that will ultimately be vetted and Amador Workforce Retention Strategies 9/28/2023 $1,995,129 discussed in collaboration with the community and the Innovations Team. This project will support the innovation-related Community Program Planning Process (CPPP). Tri-City has stated in their proposal that they would like to expand their efforts to increase engagement while ensuring that diverse communities, both unserved and underserved, are included. This process requires continuous quality improvement at the local level. To bring those ideas to fruition, Tri-City is proposing to utilize peers and hire peer consultants to seek input and feedback on the development and implementation of a more robust, streamlined, and revitalized Tri-City Community Planning Process 10/26/2023 $675,000 community planning process Los Angeles County seeks to improve mental health outcomes for children through the leveraging of innovation dollars and multiple additional funding streams to create a new mental health continuum of care for all children, with a particular focus on children ages 5 to 12. The County will test a single point of service delivery for all inpatient and outpatient services by building the first, holistic and fully integrated, health, mental health, and housing services program centered around the child and family in one location, the Children’s Community Care Village (CCCV). The County proposes to utilize an adaptation of The Village model that is in alignment with the Governor’s proposal to reprioritize Mental Health Service Act dollars towards housing interventions, full-service partnerships, and mental health services and supports. The Village was initiated in 1990 with funding from the California State Legislature to use Kedren Children and Family a “no wrong door, whatever it takes” approach to provide wraparound, Los Angeles Restorative Care Village 11/16/2023 $100,594,450 integrated mental health services and supports in Long Beach, California. Sacramento County proposes to work in partnership with Stanford Psychiatry Center for Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing to increase access to services for individuals between the ages of 12-25 years old by implementing the allcove model for treating youth with emerging mental health needs. The allcove model was inspired by other youth driven- models located in Canada and Australia that function as a ‘one-stop-shop’ for youth to ensure they have the mental health resources and support systems in place to successfully transition into adulthood. The County states that incorporating the allcove model will lead to better identification of the early warning signs of mental illness, resulting in a positive impact on youth overall mental health and wellbeing. The allcove Multi-County Innovation Project presents Sacramento County and subsequent participating counties with an innovative opportunity to allcove Multi-County provide resources and services for youth that is responsive to their Sacramento Collaborative 11/16/2023 $10,000,000 needs. Sutter-Yuba County is requesting Innovation authority spending to join the Full-Services Partnership (FSP) Multi-County Collaborative for existing specific FSP programs, originally approved by the Commission starting with Fresno County on June 25, 2019. Full-Service Partnerships (FSP) fall within the Community Services and Supports (CSS) component of the MHSA. Being one of three CSS components, the FSP service is an integrated, “whatever it takes” combination of community-based, voluntary services and strategies, built around the needs and goals of mental health consumers themselves. The core of the goals of these programs are to improve wellness and reduce negative outcomes associated with severe mental illness (SMI) through active partnership Sutter-Yuba Multi County FSP Project 1/25/2024 $1,226,250 between clients and their service providers. Sacramento County Behavioral Health Services (BHS, “County”) is requesting Innovation spending authority to partner with trusted community sites to learn from the African American/ Black/ African Descent (-community the strategies, methods, and practices that will help expand access to, engagement, and retention in mental health services for community members who are unhoused or at risk of becoming unhoused. The proposed project will adapt and expand upon a local Community Defined Mental community-defined approach, the Black Child Legacy Campaign’s, Wellness Practices for the Community Incubator Leads (CILs). These CILs are in neighborhoods African American/Black/African accessible to the African American community and serve as Sacramento Descent Unhoused 1/25/2024 $15,500,231 neighborhood hubs that support children’s health and community safety. Riverside University Health System Behavioral Health (RUHS-BH) is requesting innovation spending authority to develop a holistically integrated treatment approach within the County public mental health system for individuals living with eating disorders. In response to the needs expressed by their community, the County is bringing an Eating Disorder Intensive Outpatient Program (ED-IOP) project forward using a three-pronged approach by providing education related to eating disorders; providing treatment that is culturally centered; and providing training for professionals who treat individuals with eating disorders. The County states the ED-IOP will also Eating Disorder Intensive be at a central location to allow for the training of practitioners who Outpatient and Training provide care for those with eating disorders, targeting Medi-Cal Riverside Program 2/22/2024 $29,139,565 beneficiaries and uninsured youth. This Multi-County Collaborative will utilize innovation funds to perform live testing and evaluation of the use of a digital Psychiatric Advance Directive utilizing the web based platform. The overall goals of Phase Two will focus on engagement, collaboration, training, testing, evaluation, and transparency. Psychiatric Advance Directives (PADs) are used to support treatment decisions for individuals who may not be able to consent to or participate in treatment decisions because of a mental health condition. They generally are used to support individuals at risk of a mental health crisis where decision-making capacity can be impaired. PADs allow an individual’s wishes and priorities to inform mental health treatment. Like their general health care counterpart, a PAD can also allow an individual to designate proxy decision-makers to PADs: Phase 2 – Multi-County act on their behalf in the event the individual loses capacity to make Shasta Collaborative 5/23/2024 $1,000,000 informed decisions. This Multi-County Collaborative will utilize innovation funds to perform live testing and evaluation of the use of a digital Psychiatric Advance Directive utilizing the web based platform. The overall goals of Phase Two will focus on engagement, collaboration, training, testing, evaluation, and transparency. Psychiatric Advance Directives (PADs) are used to support treatment decisions for individuals who may not be able to consent to or participate in treatment decisions because of a mental health condition. They generally are used to support individuals at risk of a mental health crisis where decision-making capacity can be impaired. PADs allow an individual’s wishes and priorities to inform mental health treatment. Like their general health care counterpart, a PAD can also allow an individual to designate proxy decision-makers to PADs: Phase 2 – Multi-County act on their behalf in the event the individual loses capacity to make Fresno Collaborative 5/23/2024 $5,915,000 informed decisions. The County would like to contract with Pinoleville Pomo Nation to Native Crisis Line – A develop and staff a Native warm line tailored specifically to the needs of Partnership between Native American communities within Mendocino County. The warm line Pinoleville Pomo Nation and will utilize peers with lived experience and will reflect the cultural needs Mendocino Mendocino County BHRS 5/23/2024 $1,001,395 of the Native American community. Fresno County is requesting additional spending authority for their innovation project: California Reducing Disparities Project Evolutions. This request stems from the changes under the Behavioral Health Services Act (BHSA). As part of their transition plan from the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) to the BHSA, Fresno County seeks to extend this approved project to examine sustainability options for Community Defined Evidence Based Practices (CDEPs) by working with the existing CDEPs and through a new contract with Third Sector to provide technical assistance. This project was intended to support Fresno County and three of their community-based providers to identify how to transition three CDEP pilot California Reducing Disparities projects from short-term, state funded programs to MHSA Prevention Fresno Project - Extension 5/23/2024 $2,953,244 and Early Intervention (PEI) funded programs. Ventura County is requesting Innovation spending authority to join the Learning Health Care Network (LHCN) for existing Early Psychosis (EP) programs, a multi county collaborative approved by the Commission on December 17, 2018. Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Solano, Napa, Sonoma, Stanislaus, and Kern Counties were previously approved to contract with UC Davis Behavioral Health Center of Excellence to lead the Collaborative with support from One Mind and partnerships with UC San Francisco, UC San Diego, and the University of Calgary. The LHCN used innovation funds to develop the infrastructure for the LHCN to increase the quality of services and improve outcomes. The LHCN created infrastructure in California to gather real-time data from clients and their family members in existing EP clinic settings that use the CSC model. Data is collected through a developed application via questionnaire on tablets. The collection of data via application and subsequent aggregation will allow programs to learn from each other and provide the infrastructure Early Psychosis Learning Health to position the state to participate in the development of a national Care Network – Multi-County network to inform and improve care for individuals with early psychosis Ventura Collaborative 5/23/2024 $10,137,474.63 across the US.