Over the next five years, the Connecticut Department of Children and Families, the Department of Public Health and the City of New Haven will receive $4 million in federal funds to prove that providing integrated physical and mental health services improves outcomes for the city’s youngest children, particularly those who live in the Dwight neighborhood.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and New Haven Mayor Toni Harp announced Tuesday that the money will be used to design and implement a pilot program that will create an integrated physical and mental health system for children from birth to 8 years old. The program will be concentrated in the Dwight neighborhood because of already established networks in that neighborhood including those through the New Haven MOMS Partnership and the Augusta Lewis Troup School.
Department of Children and Family Services Deputy Commissioner of Operations Michael Williams said New Haven was chosen because it already provides an array of services through its schools, neighborhood-based social services organizations and Yale-New Haven Hospital, which was a requirement of the grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Read the full story from the New Haven Independent.