Mental Wellness and Prevention (ROTA)

A Rural Opioid Technical Assistance Regional (ROTA-R) project

The REACH project will provide support and resources to rural communities and stakeholders in Region 3 (Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia) to address substance misuse disorder and mental health disorder prevention, treatment, and recovery.

The project is part of the Rural Opioid Technical Assistance Regional (ROTA-R) initiative supported by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
 

Project Goals & Activities

This project will develop and implement a three-component technical assistance (TA) approach for rural communities targeting substance misuse and mental health disorder prevention, treatment, and recovery in HHS Region 3 (Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia) It involves a collaboration among the Extension systems of all 5 states in the region.

The TA components include:

• A set of 10 web-based modules, called Tier 1, which are focused on foundational skills and concepts in intervention and implementation science.
• A series of monthly live webinars focused on needs of vulnerable, under-represented and underserved populations, developed jointly by Extension experts in the 5 states.
• A widespread dissemination of the Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training to individuals in rural communities, with the goal of reaching 100 stakeholders per state per year

In two years, across the three types of TA activities, we expect to reach at least 2,000 rural stakeholders across HHS Region 3.  
 

Project Support

• We will collect data on TA utilization patterns, stakeholder satisfaction with TA format and content, and ongoing needs and gaps. This data will be used to develop added resources and adapt existing ones using a continuous quality improvement framework.
• Penn State University will serve as the lead organization and will be responsible for developing most of the TA content, coordinating the project evaluation, financial administration of the grant, and management of the web-based Learning Management System that will house many of the TA materials and data collection tools.