About Us: Technical Assistance Programs and Initiatives

The National Federation currently offers technical assistance, with an emphasis on family and youth involvement, to various statewide family networks and system of care communities. Below are a list of the three big technical assistance programs that we offer our expertise in.

Technical Assistance Partnership (www.tapartnership.org [12])

About the Technical Assistance Partnership

The Technical Assistance Partnership for Child and Family Mental Health (TA Partnership) provides technical assistance to system of care communities that are currently funded to operate the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and Their Families Program. The mission of the TA Partnership is “helping communities build systems of care to meet the mental health needs of children, youth, and families.”

This technical assistance center operates under contract from the federal Child, Adolescent and Family Branch, Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The TA Partnership is a collaboration between two mission-driven organizations:

• The National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health — dedicated to effective family leadership and advocacy to improve the quality of life of children with mental health needs and their families.
• The American Institutes for Research — committed to improving the lives of families and communities through the translation of research into best practice and policy, and
• The TA Partnership includes family members and professionals with extensive practice experience employed by either the American Institutes for Research or the National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health. Through this partnership, we model the family-professional relationships that are essential to our work.

TA Partnership Newsletter (http://www.tapartnership.org/newsletter.php [13])

The TA Partnership monthly newsletter contains current child and family mental health news, research updates, funding opportunities, and event listings. Each issue also contains articles that feature innovative and promising activities from system of care communities around the country. To sign up for the TA Partnership newsletter, send an email totapartnership@air.org [14].

• View the current issue [15]
• View the archived articles [16]

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Caring for Every Child's Mental Health Campaign (http://www.systemsofcare.samhsa.gov/TechnicalAssistance/smc.aspx [17])

About the Caring for Every Child's Mental Health Campaign

Since its inception in 1994, the Caring for Every Child’s Mental Health Campaign has supported system of care communities through the strategic use of social marketing and communications strategies. Funded by a contract with the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and Their Families Program, the Campaign operates through a partnership between the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD), Vanguard Communications (Vanguard) and the National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health (the Federation). The team works together to address the needs of diverse system of care communities using social marketing and communications techniques that are youth- and family-driven, culturally competent and responsive to individual community needs.

The overarching purpose of the Campaign is to stimulate support for a comprehensive system of care approach to children’s mental health services. To accomplish this, the Campaign has set the following primary goals:

• Reduce stigma associated with mental illness and promote mental health.
• Use social marketing strategies to help increase the likelihood that children and youth with SED and their families are appropriately served and treated.
• Increase awareness of mental health needs and services for children and youth among mental health providers, SOC communities, intermediary groups/organizations, and the public.
• Demonstrate to communities that the mental health needs of children and youth with SED are best met through the utilization of systems of care.
• Use social marketing strategies to help build capacity within SOC communities to sustain services and support to children and youth with SED and their families.

Georgetown National Technical Assistance Center (http://gucchd.georgetown.edu/ [18])

About the Georgetown Technical Assistance Center

The National Federation provides technical assistance provision with a focus on family and youth integration in all aspects of the work of the center. Facilitation, presentation, resource identification and leadership development are among the services provided. Current activities include efforts within Public Health, Reduction of Health Care Disparities, Systems Transformation, Transition Age Youth, Early Childhood, and Systems of Care.