HEART
HEART Lay Mental Health Provider Training
Youth-serving organizations are promising settings in which to deliver mental health interventions to Black and Latinx youth who experience continuous traumatic stress due to their ability to offer ongoing support, compared to clinical settings that offer short-term therapy. Additionally, in response to a shortage of mental health professionals who can provide culturally- relevant care to racial minoritized populations, community members with informal mental health training can increase the availability of care by delivering interventions through YSOs within their own communities. While co-facilitation of trauma-informed group interventions by mental health professionals and community members (task-sharing) is considered an effective model for behavioral change, evidence demonstrates employing lay health workers as sole providers of evidence-based interventions (task-shifting) may increase access to interventions. We are piloting a lay mental health provider training and consultation model to promote delivery of a culturally adapted evidence-based traumatic stress intervention, HEART, for Black and Latinx youth who experience continuous traumatic stress. HEART LMHP training builds on the cultural asset of communalism- shared responsibility for each other and one's community- to enhance the accessibility, relevance and effectiveness of evidence-based traumatic stress intervention for Black and Latinx youth exposed to continuous traumatic stress.