As you prepare for the upcoming CYBHI (Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative) program, we know you are also carefully considering how to allocate and budget Capacity Grant funds. These grants provide an exciting opportunity to build strong foundations for future CYBHI services and ensure the effective, sustainable delivery of mental health support for students.

You may be asking yourself...

How do I budget for CYBHI when I’m not yet sure what it will require of my district?

Should I prioritize hiring new staff or funding existing services?

With this being a one-time grant, how can I ensure these funds make a meaningful, lasting impact on our students?

Here, we’ll explore some innovative ideas to help you plan and maximize the impact of your CYBHI capacity grant funds.

Leveraging Capacity Grants to Build a Scalable, Sustainable Foundation

The CYBHI Capacity Grant allows K-12 school districts to proactively invest in infrastructure, staffing, and technology, laying the groundwork for a lasting impact on student wellness. Funds can be used for projects that will be sustained by future CYBHI reimbursable revenue, enabling your districts to establish support structures that will grow as the initiative does.

Creative Ideas for Budgeting and Planning

1. Consider Establishing a School-Based Health or Wellness Center (SBHC)
   Wellness centers provide a dedicated space where students can receive support and resources in a calm and structured environment. Consider how Capacity Grant funds could go toward remodeling an existing space, furnishing it with student-friendly decor, or integrating technology such as tablets for check-ins and self-guided relaxation exercises. Wellness centers not only help manage current mental health needs but can also be scaled as CYBHI expands, providing clinical services from individual counseling to medical screenings in one cohesive environment.

2. Boost or Restructure Staffing
   As a school leader considering CYBHI, this may be a familiar thought - how do you scale your services but not your team? Your mental health providers are central component of student support, and the CYBHI Capacity Grants can enable hiring or restructuring teams for program success. For example, you might expand your contracted services to include more providers on your campus or extend their hours, or hire hourly staff to accommodate your community’s needs in the evenings or on weekends. You could also use the funds to pay for professional development, coverage for staff while they attend training, or administrative support to navigate paperwork and reporting requirements. 

3. Explore New or Expanded Technology Resources
   To meet CYBHI/billing requirements for capturing detailed health information, you might need to expand your district's existing Student Information System (SIS) to include new data fields or ways to communicate with your community's families about providing billing and insurance details. Collaboration with your district’s director of technology is essential to review the new requirements and determine whether they necessitate more staffing, budgeting for advanced SIS features, or even specialized roles at school sites to handle this information effectively.

4. Invest in On-Site Training for Staff
   As a district leader, you're committed to enhancing student support yet faced with the challenge of balancing numerous demands within a limited schedule. This can make it difficult to accommodate essential training for your school mental health and administrative teams during the academic year. Capacity Grant funds can alleviate these constraints, allowing you to offer valuable training during summer months when staff have more flexibility. This support can also enable you to advance your district's existing mental health services by integrating evidence-based practices—whether through purchasing platforms, books, or online resources. Under CYBHI several screening types are reimbursable, so you might consider purchasing specific screening tools and training your staff to use them effectively. 

Key Considerations for a Sustainable Budget

As you create your two-year budget for the CYBHI capacity grant, remember to prioritize initiatives that can be scaled or that will have lasting benefits once CYBHI is fully operational. Consider tracking costs and services carefully, ensuring that any new investment—whether in personnel, technology, or training—can be aligned with future CYBHI revenue to create a seamless transition.

Final Thoughts

We know you spend countless hours exploring how to provide the best care for your community, and many times those plans are constrained or even blocked by budgetary limitations. CYBHI presents an opportunity to mitigate that! 

Nobody knows your community’s needs like you do, and the Capacity Grant can help turn your “big ideas” into a reality. Take advantage of the ability to give your staff, students and families the quality care this initiative aims to provide. It may take hours of exploration, development and implementation, but it stands a strong chance of becoming a lasting, worthwhile and impactful investment.

Care Solace is here to help, and we'd love to be your thought partner in strategizing how to maximize your existing services or help define sustainability for your school community. If you haven't already, click here to learn more or schedule a discovery call with us today to learn about how our services directly support CYBHI success.