Senate panel approves two-year Families First grant to fund family support after youth mental-health crises

The Senate Finance Committee approved an expansion request to implement the Family Empowerment Initiative, an interdepartmental grant administered by the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services and funded through the Tennessee Department of Human Services Families First Community Grant program.

Deputy Commissioner Matt Yancey said the two-year grant totals $8,528,866 (first-year funding $4,264,400) and is intended to provide two-generation, community-based follow-up for children (ages 0-18) and their caregivers after engagement with a mobile crisis service or discharge from an inpatient psychiatric facility. The program will fund care coordination, wraparound services and intensive family peer support for up to 90 days following the crisis event.

Yancey said the department expects the grant providers to serve more than 1,300 children and about 1,800 adult caregivers annually through four existing youth mobile crisis providers identified as subawardees: Youth Villages, Mental Health Cooperative, McNabb Center and Frontier Health. He said no new state positions are requested for these grant-funded services.

Senators asked about monitoring and fraud prevention; department officials described grant monitoring that includes review of financials, contracting/bidding checks, site visits and interviews with staff. On sustainability, officials described existing partnerships with TennCare and managed care organizations and said the department will seek to transition effective services into TennCare-funded arrays after demonstrating outcomes.

Members moved and approved the expansion request; the roll-call vote was recorded in the transcript and the committee reapproved the expansion request.