Pawnee Mental Health Services are excited about a multi-million dollar federal grant awarded to the organization in Fall of 2021.
Executive Director Robbin Cole discussed the SAMHSA Community Mental Health Centers grant program with KMAN Thursday. Pawnee was awarded nearly $4.75 million through the program, intended to expand access to mental health support amid the COVID 19 pandemic.
“That grant has given us some funding to help expand services to individuals who have severe mental illnesses, children with serious emotional disturbances” and more, according to Cole.
Cole says something they’re particularly happy to improve with the funds is availability of clinical training to Pawnee staff members.
“Over the years, as funding for community mental health has become tighter and tighter,” says Cole, “Training was one of those things that got hit in terms of how many resources we were able to allocate.”
She says the grant will support various training opportunities, such as the training of 3 veterans case managers and telehealth training for all substance abuse and mental health therapists. Other areas of focus for training include motivational interviewing, attachment-based family therapy, and trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy.
Pawnee Mental Health is also collecting a check this Saturday at K-State’s Womens Basketball game.
The mental health service provider was chosen as the recipient of the K-State Homecoming’s 5K Philanthropy this year. Cole says they were honored to be the chosen beneficiaries.
“We’re really talking that up here at Pawnee,” she says. “We’re going to have quite a few Pawnee employees at the game.”
The award will be presented between the first and second quarters of the game, which gets started at 6:30 p.m.
“So go Cats! And everybody come out, support the Womens Basketball Team on Saturday night and support Pawnee Mental Health during that game.”
