Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Mental Health Education topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Delray Beach proclaims May as Mental Health Awareness Month; school‑based program seeks opioid settlement funds for prevention
Summary
Mayor Carney read a proclamation declaring May 2025 as Mental Health Awareness and Trauma‑Informed Care Month; Dr. Suzanne Spencer of Living Skills In Schools urged commissioners to allocate opioid settlement funds to primary prevention programs the organization runs in local schools.
Mayor Thomas F. Carney Jr. read a proclamation declaring May 2025 as Mental Health Awareness and Trauma‑Informed Care Month in Delray Beach, citing the impact of adverse childhood experiences and the need to promote trauma‑informed approaches across systems of care.
Following the proclamation, Kenya Madison and representatives of the grassroots "Get Your Green On" campaign and Living Skills In Schools (LSIS) addressed the commission. Dr. Suzanne Spencer, CEO of LSIS, described the program’s school‑based substance‑abuse prevention and mental health promotion work. Spencer said LSIS has served Delray Beach schools for more than a decade, delivers repeated classroom interventions across grades K–12, and recently expanded to workplace programming designed to reach parents.
Spencer asked the commission to consider allocating a portion of Delray Beach’s opioid settlement funds to school‑based primary prevention programs. She cited program reach metrics presented to the commission: LSIS reported delivering 3,000 in‑school classroom presentations last year with a duplicated reach across two counties of roughly 20,000 students and a unique reach figure presented at the meeting (45,000 unique reach across the two counties was reported by the speaker). Spencer said prevention yields a high return on investment and that early interventions reduce later treatment demand.
Commissioners voiced support for prevention approaches and praised LSIS for its longstanding local work. No formal funding decision was made at the meeting; staff and commissioners discussed the opioid settlement allocation process and the need to consider prevention alongside treatment and recovery services as they finalize funding recommendations.
The commission accepted the proclamation for Mental Health Awareness and encouraged community participation in Get Your Green On activities during May.
