Public Education & Training

DBHIDS is dedicated to promoting healthy behaviors and healthy communities through education and awareness building strategies. DBHIDS has developed a variety of comprehensive and easily accessible online resources and trainings to strengthen awareness of behavioral health tools, services and support available for individuals and families.

• Healthy Minds Philly
  A virtual resource designed to provide awareness and education on behavioral health issues and to offer helpful information, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Healthy Minds Philly is home to: 
  • Behavioral Health Screenings: Quick, free and anonymous online screenings to learn whether you or someone you care about might be experiencing symptoms of behavioral health disorder.
  • Mental Health First Aid (MHFA): A public education program that teaches the skills needed to identify, understand, and respond to signs of behavioral health challenges or crises. First Aid is given until appropriate supports are received.
  • Beating the Blues: The Beating the Blues program is an online tool that teaches a user cognitive behavioral strategies to manage mild to moderate anxiety and depression. This evidence based program is free to all Philadelphia residents and comes in eight weekly modules to complete.
• Behavioral Health Training and Education Network
  Designed to support DBHIDS and other human services systems by planning, coordinating, and providing quality learning experiences in Behavioral Health for the entire system, including individuals and their family members, DBHIDS staff members and staff of other service provider organizations.

Prevention & Early Intervention

DBHIDS understands the earlier we intervene with behavioral health issues, the faster we are able to provide professional care as a community. This requires paying attention to social determinants of health, which include the availability of support, experiences of trauma, access to behavioral health care, educational and economic opportunities, and the social and physical environment. We do this by partnering with city agencies including the criminal justice, housing, school, and child welfare systems, as well as the behavioral health treatment system and the general public.

• Community Response Teams
  Community Response Teams provide community support and crisis response services to communities affected by disasters, violence, or other events which require emotional support and psychoeducation as part of coordinated response effort.
• Crisis Intervention Team Training
  The Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) is a collaboration between DBHIDS staff, the Philadelphia Police Department, and other stakeholders designed to reduce conflict during encounters between police and community members with mental health challenges. CIT training emphasizes the principles of violence prevention, de-escalation and community collaboration.
• Infant Toddler Early Intervention Program
  The Philadelphia Infant Toddler Early Intervention Program is an entitlement program for infants and toddlers between the ages of birth to 3 years of age who are eligible. Anyone can make a referral to Early Intervention and all referred children will receive a developmental assessment and many will also receive a multidisciplinary evaluation. All children eligible will be assigned a service coordinator and all Early Intervention Services are delivered at no cost to the family.

Community Engagement

Public education around behavioral health issues is necessary to promote overall health and well-being. Through partnerships with community based agencies and connecting with public leaders, DBHIDS works to promote the health of Philadelphians by supporting initiatives that strengthen individuals, families and communities.

• Mural Arts/Porch Light Program
  A groundbreaking public art approach to achieving health and wellness in Philadelphia done in collaboration with the City’s Mural Arts Program. Porch Light works closely with communities to uplift public art as an expression of community resilience and a vehicle of personal and community healing.
• Engaging Males of Color (EMOC) Initiative
  A newly established and targeted initiative designed to address the impact of health, economic and educational disparities experienced by males of color. Its goals are to promote better understanding and awareness of behavioral health challenges, reduce the associated stigma and improve the quality of life for males of color throughout the Philadelphia region.
• Community Coalition Initiative
  Community Coalition Initiative was designed to better deliver behavioral health services to targeted communities where there might be significant numbers of vulnerable or at-risk individuals. The program has built partnerships with seven coalitions of community-based organizations (CBOs) and licensed behavioral health providers to help reach community members who can most benefit from these programs, support and treatment services.
• Faith Based Unit
  In 2005, DBHIDS created a Faith-Based Initiative to build partnerships with city churches, mosques, and synagogues to reach members in various faith communities. These coalitions provide another way to connect people with behavioral health and developmental disabilities with needed supports and services.

Cross System Collaboration

Cross-system collaboration is an essential component to achieving overall wellness. Behavioral health settings are not the natural habitat of many community members. DBHIDS supports innovative cross-system collaboration to strengthen the capacity of the workforce to meet the health and wellness needs of people.

• Tobacco Recovery and Wellness (TRWI) Initiative
  TRWI is a partnership between the Philadelphia Department of Public Health Tobacco Policy and Control Program, University of Pennsylvania’s Comprehensive Smoking Treatment Program, and the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbilities (DBHIDS) that engages behavioral health providers to incorporate evidence-based tobacco dependence treatment into their clinical and community practice.
• Homeless Outreach Unit
  DBHIDS supports five agencies, led by Project Home to engage people living on the streets of Philadelphia. The other agencies are Horizon House, SELF Inc., the Mental Health Association of Southeastern PA and Hall Mercer Community Mental Health Center. The majority of the persons they engage are believed to suffer from behavioral health challenges, particularly co-occurring mental health and addiction challenges.

Innovative Treatment Services

DBHIDS recognizes that effective and innovative practices are essential components of a resilience- and recovery-oriented behavioral health system. DBHIDS is committed to ensuring efficient, sustainable, “state-of-the-art” treatments are a part of the array of services and supports available to individuals who need them.

• The Philadelphia Alliance for Child Trauma Services
  A network of child serving systems and organizations that provides the most effective practices for traumatized youth and their families aimed to increase the number of children who receive the most effective trauma-focused and trauma informed care in Philadelphia.
• Evidence-based Practice and Innovation Center (EPIC)
  DBHIDS’ Evidence-based Practice and Innovation Center, or EPIC, seeks to advance system-wide efforts to help support the implementation, sustainability and accessibility of behavioral health Evidence-based Practices in Philadelphia.