As our community reflects on the tragic shooting at the Allen Premium Outlet Mall on May 6, 2023, one year later, the need for support in our Allen community remains.
More than 650 individuals, families, and businesses generously gave more than $500,000 to CFT’s Support for Allen Fund to assist local nonprofits providing resources and services in response to the tragic mass shooting.
The fund’s major corporate contributors include: Access Healthcare, Bank of America, Crocs, Dallas Mavericks Foundation, Dallas Stars Foundation, FC Dallas, Fossil Group, Greystar, Home Team Prints, Kendra Scott Foundation, Macy’s, Medical City Healthcare, New Balance, Pioneer Natural Resources, Pluckers, and Rent-A-Center.
Grants from the fund have supported nonprofits working in the Allen community to provide mental health, grief, and trauma support including the Children’s Advocacy Center of Collin County, LifePath Systems, Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, and Texas Muslim Women’s Foundation. Additional grants will continue to be awarded for ongoing and long-term recovery services.
“We are continuing to make grants from the fund in support of those impacted, especially in terms of mental health support for Allen community members and first responders through LifePath Systems and the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute,” said Communities Foundation of Texas’ president and CEO, Wayne White. “The one-year mark of an unspeakable tragedy like this often requires additional and increased mental health support in the days, weeks, and months ahead. Our team has been working side by side with the fund’s grantees to identify the needs that continue to arise and how the fund can provide long-term support.”
See below for how the local nonprofits that received initial funding used their grant awards:
Grantee Spotlight: LifePath Systems
Amount Awarded: Multiple grants totaling $125,000, with additional grant dollars to be announced
Grant Purpose: To support ongoing mental health and trauma services to Allen and Collin County community members and those impacted by the shooting.
LifePath Systems is the designated behavioral health and intellectual and developmental disabilities authority for Collin County, operating as a unit of local government and a nonprofit center to provide essential mental health, substance use, and intellectual and developmental disability services to families and individuals. The team at LifePath worked quickly and closely with the City of Allen to open and staff the Family Assistance Center after the mass shooting, where they provided free grief and trauma support to victims and those impacted.
LifePath staff then went store to store to provide support at the Allen Premium Outlets as stores reopened. LifePath continues to host a 24/7 support hotline for anyone affected, offering services at no cost.
“The initial grant funding from CFT’s Support for Allen Fund helped significantly as we onboarded additional staff and contractors, and as we continued our outreach and education to ensure that those impacted are aware of the trauma response counseling and therapy resources available to them,” said Tammy Mahan, Chief Executive Officer at LifePath Systems.
A second grant to LifePath supported the new Center for Healing in partnership with LifePath Systems, known as a community resiliency center, on their McKinney campus, where licensed therapists and crisis counselors work closely with those affected by the shooting. They offer specialized therapy for youth experiencing mental health issues and are working closely with school districts to ensure parents and students have access to resources. Grant funding supported needed building modifications to make the space more welcoming, initiatives to disseminate information about the center’s programming, educational workshops, and ongoing Mental Health First Aid training for City of Allen staff.
Funds are also supporting clients who need access to alternative, holistic therapies like meditation and trauma-informed yoga. “Our goal is to ensure people receive the recovery resources they need without worrying about treatment costs,” said Tammy.
Grantee Spotlight: Children’s Advocacy Center of Collin County
Amount Awarded: $50,000
Grant Purpose: To support Children’s Advocacy Center of Collin County’s services and support for clients impacted by the Allen shooting.
Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC) of Collin County deployed staff to aid the Family Assistance Center established by the FBI Dallas Field Office and Allen Police Department. For the duration of the time that the assistance center operated, CAC of Collin County team members were on-site working with children and their families.
CAC of Collin County provided crisis intervention and clinical services to impacted children and their extended families and has continued to provide therapeutic services to victims who were present at the shooting, as well as for their family members.
In addition to their direct services, CAC of Collin County worked with Texas DPS to discuss policies, procedures, and best practices for helping children in mass shooting situations. At their urging, the state association, Children’s Advocacy Centers of Texas convened a meeting of state CAC’s to develop a playbook to assist in future mobilization.
“We already have a unique relationship with law enforcement, allowing us to respond quickly. We have now formalized a relationship with the North Texas Fusion Center to support identifying and responding to potential threats in our community,” said Lynne McLean, Chief Executive Officer at CAC of Collin County. “We also engaged in discussions with state law enforcement on how to respond to children who have experienced this type of trauma.”
Grantee Spotlight: Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute
Amount Awarded: $40,500, with additional grant dollars to be announced
Grant Purpose: Funding for the DFW First Responders Support Network that provided clinical services to officers who responded to the shooting and their families, as well as support for the new “Texas Blue Chip” program that helps officers access confidential mental health services.
In response to the mass shooting in Allen, The Texas Law Enforcement Peer Network (TLEPN), the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute and the UNT Dallas Caruth Police Institute formulated a response plan launched at the Allen Police Department to provide mental health resources to affected officers and their families. Clinical support in managing stress, trauma, and fatigue was provided by the DFW First Responders Support Network, which consists of more than 40 culturally competent clinicians who saw 120 unique visits in the initial three weeks following the tragedy.
In late August 2023, with support from CFT and the Support for Allen Fund, the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute launched The Texas Blue Chip Program, a groundbreaking initiative aimed at offering North Texas law enforcement officers an additional access point for confidential, free mental health services in collaboration with TLEPN. This initiative includes direct and anonymous access to mental health services for first responders who were involved in or supported the response to the mass casualty event in Allen, Texas, on May 6, 2023.
The Texas Blue Chip Program
The Blue Chip Program introduces specially designed poker chips that are accessible at police stations throughout the region and virtually on the TLEPN app. These chips grant an officer access to free, discreet, and confidential counseling sessions with mental health providers. The urgency of this program is underscored by the distressing statistic that Texas recorded the highest number of law enforcement officer suicides in 2022, with a total of 16 lives lost.
“While officers may have avenues for private mental health care through insurance or peer networks, many still hesitate to seek help, even in the aftermath of traumatic incidents. The Texas Blue Chip Program offers an additional anonymous channel through which officers can obtain assistance on their own terms, addressing the fear of stigma often associated with a public safety professional’s outreach for services,” said B.J. Wagner, senior vice president of health and public safety at the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute.
“Allen’s new police chief, Chief Steve Dye, informed the Meadows Institute that without the Texas Blue Chip program, Allen would not have as healthy of a workforce,” said Wagner. “Chief Dye shared that the ability for officers to receive immediate, anonymous clinical care was lifesaving, a service that could not have been provided without the significant philanthropic support from Communities Foundation of Texas and the Support for Allen Fund.”
In the aftermath of the mass shooting, mental health support was provided to officers at the scene who took immediate police actions to end the tragedy; however, the trauma care needs for the officers on scene who did not take police actions but applied tourniquets, sealed wounds, and recovered bodies, as well as the emergency call takers who listened to the traumatic events unfold, were not initially addressed. These gaps in care underscored the crucial need for trauma-informed clinical interventions that go beyond peer support. The Support for Allen Fund grant enabled all first responders to access much-needed trauma care immediately and for the lingering months of post-trauma impact that followed.
Since the regional launch of the Texas Blue Chip Program, more than 100 chips have been used through the Allen Police Department. This represents 100 clinical visits that led to sustained relationships with clinicians through the program to help facilitate full trauma recovery.
