Nevada is one of the states that was awarded the Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) grant in 2013 from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Early on, the SS/HS Nevada team begin working to build an infrastructure that would support the SS/HS programs and activities and help them achieve their goals of developing early childhood social-emotional learning, promoting positive mental and behavioral health, enhancing school climate and connection, and preventing behavioral health problems and violence.
The team noticed that one of the challenging aspects of building a solid infrastructure was forming key relationships among state and community leaders who are committed to the process of collaboration. This video highlights how Nevada was able to integrate their state management teams through relationship-building and development of “The Collaboratory”. This serves as an open space, creative process where a group of people work together to generate solutions to solve complex problems.
Watch SS/HS Project Coordinator, Pat Sanborn, describe how the development of strong relationships between state and community leaders are vital to creating positive change for children, youth and families in Nevada.
