Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services Program for Children and Their Families

Ohio

Project Tapestry: Weaving Solutions for Child Mental Health

Project TAPESTRY enhances Cuyahoga County’s current systems of care efforts by achieving three main goals.

The first goal is increasing mental health service access and capacity, merging a premiere mental health case wraparound model with a pioneering child welfare reform initiative. The PEP (Positive Education Program) Connections program is a nationally recognized child mental health wraparound model well versed in systems-of-care principles.  Project TAPESTRY blends the best of formal mental health services (Connections) with informal support services through community collaboratives, firmly grounded in the philosophy of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Family-to-Family initiative. The neighborhood collaboratives which cover all of the City of Cleveland as well as East Cleveland and Euclid, will serve as demonstration sites with increased access to an expanded array of high quality mental health services.  The Positive Education Program’s Connections Program will provide the vehicle to link children and families to these services, including a menu of evidence-based treatments that will be developed as a direct result of this project.  Both the schools and neighborhood collaboratives will serve as primary referral sources for youth with SED, linking the education and child welfare systems to much needed mental health services.  In these demonstration sites special attention will be given to meeting the needs of underserved populations, including younger children, youth in transition to adulthood, females, Hispanics, and Asian Americans.

The second goal of the project will be to create change and improvement in the children’s mental health system by dramatically  increasing the enhanced and empowered role of parents in all aspects of the planning and implementation of the program.

The final goal of the project is the improved integration of services offered to SED children and their families by the various public and private child-serving systems.  This integration will consist of improved communication, cooperation and data sharing between the child serving systems and increased levels of pooled funding.

Michele Herman
Grantee Project Officer
1 Choke Cherry Road, Room 6-1050
Rockville, MD 20857
Phone: 240-276-1924
Fax: 240-276-1990
E-mail: michele.herman@samhsa.hhs.gov 

Beth Dague
Project Tapestry: Weaving Solutions for Child Mental Health
Principal Investigator
1219 Ontario Street
Cleveland, OH 44113
Phone:  216-243-3400 Ext. 437
Fax:  216-241-3943
E-mail: dague@cccmhb.org 

Melissa Winfield
Project Director
1400 West 25th Street
Cleveland,  OH 44113
Phone: 216-479-3303
Fax: 216-241-3943
E-mail:  winfield@cccmhb.org 

Lisa L. Bottoms
Project Director
CUYAHOGA County Board of County Commissioners
Family & Children First Council
Cleveland, CUYAHOGA, OH 44114
Phone: 216-698-2875
Alt. Phone: 213-513-5333
Fax: 216-698-2870
E-mail: