About The Academy
The Academy puts behavioral health tools in the hands of community-based organizations and others who have meaningful opportunities to start conversations and provide help.
The Need
Everyone deserves access to timely,
effective, and affirming care.
The Response
The Academy partners with social service providers and the communities they serve to help reimagine what care means, where care happens, and who provides it.
In New York City and throughout the U.S., a fraction of people experiencing treatable mental or behavioral health conditions will get care. Those who do often suffer with symptoms for months or years before receiving help, causing hardships for individuals, families, and communities.
Treatment barriers, treatment quality, and treatment outcomes are often significantly worse for people of color, people with low incomes, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, and others who disproportionately experience obstacles and discrimination inside and outside of behavioral health systems.
Poor mental or behavioral health impacts every area of life. It increases risk for – and makes it more difficult to manage – other social, economic, and health challenges. Mental and behavioral health challenges can also disrupt our connections with others and sense of self, leading to feelings of isolation that make it even harder to cope. We need community care to meet these challenges.
Everyone has a role to play in building better behavioral health. Community-based organizations (CBOs) and other social service providers are especially well positioned to reduce harm and close treatment gaps in communities most impacted by racism and other structural inequalities.
The Academy builds on Connections to Care (C2C), a promising model for new collaborations and care pathways between CBOs and behavioral health providers in NYC. Working with social service providers, we advance relevant, accessible, and effective behavioral health support where people already live, work, learn, play, and seek help.
We prioritize capacity building in the 33 neighborhoods identified by the New York City Taskforce on Racial Inclusion and Equity (TRIE) as most impacted by COVID-19 or experiencing high rates of health and other socioeconomic disparities.
The Academy strengthens the capacity of social service providers to:
- Provide affirming, trauma-informed services
- Normalize compassionate conversations about behavioral health
- Reduce the burden on individuals and families to initiate help
- Use relevant skills, including to prevent, identify, respond to, and care for mental health challenges and emotional pain
- Co-design better care networks and approaches
Why Social Service Providers?
Social service providers are uniquely positioned to address behavioral health in the context of the whole person and community.
People come to social services for help in times of crisis or hardship, to manage significant life transitions, pursue important goals, access vital services, or find community. These providers already help people address urgent social, economic, and health needs. They witness the personal and communal impacts of structural inequality, including on mental health and wellbeing. They are also close to the wisdom, traditions, strengths, insights, and care networks that already exist in communities.
The Academy builds on evidence from task-sharing, integrated care, and other promising approaches demonstrating that many people who have trusted relationships can provide effective help, when they receive the right training and support. In taking on new behavioral health skills and roles, these helpers extend access to care, improve the quality of care, and expand our knowledge about what works.
Addressing behavioral health helps social service providers more confidently meet the needs they already see and realize their missions. Staff at CBOs and City and State agencies encounter behavioral health every day. They meet people who are contending with severe stress, trauma, grief, harms related to substance use, depression, anxiety, serious mental illness, suicidality, and more. They deserve knowledge, skills, and supports to respond effectively, while caring for their own wellbeing.
