Funding Available: DMH/DD/SUS Child Behavioral Health Trauma-Informed Residential Improvement Survey

Last year, the state budget invested a historic $835 million in behavioral health and resiliency within DHHS. $700 million of that directly supports Governor Cooper’s Behavioral Health & Resilience Roadmap, including $80 million to strengthen our child behavioral health system.

As we start to identify funding opportunities that best support children and families, we’re asking that our public provider network complete a survey with project proposals, including requests to fund existing projects, projects in development, and future near-term projects that support our residential provider network in establishing or enhancing a safe, trauma-informed environment of care.

You can submit your project proposal here: https://forms.office.com/g/EvQe8Kxh7k.

Please note that the survey is open to all child group residential providers level II through IV and PRTFs within North Carolina. As a reminder, this survey will look at just one aspect of the investment approach. We will be discussing other investments in our Child Behavioral Health Advisory Committee, which will began on March 25, 2024.

As you’re completing this survey, please keep in mind that our departmental goals are to prioritize projects that keep children in family homes whenever possible, value the integration of family, and support children in out-of-home treatment (residential) settings, if that level of treatment is necessary and appropriate.

Examples of project proposals may include, but are not limited to:  

• Building repairs, home modifications for ADA compliance and/or accessibility, and/or fences for homes in busy areas to provide safe outdoor spaces
• Implementation of Seeking Safety, Sanctuary, Just Culture or similar models
• Programs that support transitions of care and family treatment/engagement while the child is in a residential setting
• Evaluating the physical environment and program procedures to reduce triggers for re-traumatization
• Designing programs that are predictable and promote both physical and emotional safety
• Enhancing treatment spaces to be more trauma informed 
• Implementing process to ensure sufficient and consistent staffing for supervision, the establishment of trust, timely intervention and de-escalation
• Completing specialized staff training and trauma-informed model implementation
• Building or enhancing recreational spaces 
• Creating spaces for sensory regulation 
• Expanding the use and roles of peer supports and family advocates
• Partnering with first responders, local organizations, faith-based institutions, and schools to create a trauma-informed community that support individuals

Additionally, DMH/DD/SUS would like to learn more about providers who have project proposals related to:

• Expanding bed capacity
• Creating specialty population programs
• Developing or piloting new programs

Any projects that receive funding from DMH/DD/SUS will need to adhere to the following guideline:

• Individuals cannot be restricted from using a service just because they live in a different LME/MCO catchment area.

This survey will close and will no longer accept submissions after April 8, 2024. Responses to the survey will be reviewed by DMH/DD/SUS staff and will help in identifying projects that align with DMH/DD/SUS’s priorities, to inform how this one-time funding may be disbursed.

Please note that completing this survey is in no way a guarantee of funding.  Please complete one form per proposal. There is no limit to the number of proposals a provider can submit.

Thank you for your continued partnership and dedication to the health and wellbeing of our kids.