Mission Statement

The UNLV PRACTICE Nevada Rural Communities Mental Health Outreach Program (RHOP) is dedicated to addressing mental health challenges among adolescents and transition age youth (ages 12 – 25) in rural and frontier communities across Nevada who seek help for their mental health concerns. RHOP's mission is to utilize telebehavioral health approaches to offer evidence-based interventions and assessments in middle schools, high schools, and college settings. These interventions are designed to prevent or mitigate the impact of mental illness, enhance the quality of life, and improve social, educational, and occupational functioning among these individuals.

During the current funding period (from 10/1/23 to 9/29/24), we will extend and enhance RHOP's services in the following ways:

  1. Continuation of RHOP services throughout the entire school year, building upon the foundation laid during the summer of 2023.
  2. Expansion of our current UNLV PRACTICE CIS program to serve an additional 40 unique clients during the 2023 – 2024 academic year.
  3. Continuation of services for 40 unique clients throughout the summer of 2024.
  4. Ongoing increased service provision, with a minimum of 40 unique clients served, during the 2024 – 2025 academic year, contingent on funding availability.

We will maintain our commitment to program evaluation to assess the effectiveness of RHOP services. Our program seeks to bridge unmet service gaps and address critical needs within Nevada's mental health system, particularly in rural and frontier areas. We are achieving this by offering telebehavioral health services during the summer months in regions like Elko, Humboldt, and other counties where such services were previously unavailable. This is made possible through our partnership with Community in Schools of Nevada (CIS).

UNLV Practice Rural Communities Mental Health Outreach Program logo

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Over the past 12 years, UNLV PRACTICE and CIS have collaboratively employed an interconnected systems approach to deliver telebehavioral health services to 40 – 50 unique help-seeking adolescents and transition age youth in their respective schools during the academic year. Our interventions are tailored to meet the unique needs and challenges presented by each client, with the following aims in mind:

  1. Improving clinical symptoms and behavioral functioning.
  2. Facilitating the return of adolescents and transition age youth to age-appropriate social, academic, and vocational activities.
  3. Delaying or preventing the onset of serious mental illnesses.
  4. Reducing the occurrence of serious mental illnesses in this demographic.

Services are delivered by a team at UNLV PRACTICE within an interdisciplinary, community mental health training setting. Our dedicated faculty and student clinicians provide evidence-based, culturally-sensitive, and linguistically-informed care to Nevada residents. Simultaneously, we contribute to workforce development by training the next generation of behavioral health care providers in the state.

*RHOP is funded through the State of Nevada, Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Public and Behavioral Health, Subaward.