Memorial Hospital Foundation Receives Behavioral Health Grant for 2005 Hurricane Survivor Initiatives

For Immediate Release November 17, 2008

GULFPORT, Miss.—The Memorial Hospital Foundation received a $596,000 grant for Memorial Behavioral Health (MBH) and the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) Marriage and Family Therapy Program to administer mental health services in 16 area schools.

These programs are the result of efforts begun by Memorial following Hurricane Katrina and were launched at the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year in the Gulfport, Long Beach, Pass Christian, Bay-Waveland and Hancock County school districts. Memorial sought to expand its school-based health clinics into mental health for school-aged children.

The American Red Cross Hurricane Recovery Program as part of the program’s behavioral health initiative provided the grant, with Johns Hopkins and USM as key partners in this important project, for survivors of the 2005 hurricane season.

This grant has funded five mental health clinicians based at MBH, and an additional five graduate students in the USM Marriage and Family Therapy Program. These teams will deliver mental health services to school-aged children suffering from the impacts of Hurricane Katrina and other related mental health problems. The goal of the project is to conduct approximately 3,000 mental health sessions for more than 1,100 children during the grant period.

During the first three months of the program, clinicians have delivered mental health services to more than 415 school-aged children and conducted over 600 mental health sessions.

There remains a great need for mental health services in our schools