The Munroe-Meyer Institute will conduct a project to improve access to pediatric mental health services in Nebraska, working as a sub-recipient in a $2.2 million five-year grant awarded to the Nebraska DHHS Title V Maternal and Child Health program.
The goal of the program is to increase access to pediatric mental health services by enhancing screening and early identification of mental/behavioral health disorders of childhood and adolescence; educating providers about screening and use of telehealth; and providing expert behavioral consultation services to primary care providers using telehealth and telephone. The project represents opportunities to innovate and improve access to pediatric mental health services using tele-behavioral health (and other supports) at the individual, system, and population levels.
The proposed clinical demonstration project headed up by MMI will occur within a currently existing network of 43 integrated mental/behavioral health clinics located across the state. The project design for the clinical demonstration project includes development of an expert pediatric mental/behavioral health consultation team, development of a consultation services network between the expert consultation team and the primary care clinics, education for providers and the expert team, and a plan to scale up and spread the project after an initial phase of implementation.
Holly Roberts, Ph.D., associate professor at the MMI Department of Psychology, will be the project director for the clinical demonstration project. Joseph Evans, Ph.D., professor at the MMI Department of Psychology and clinical director of the Behavioral Health Education Center of Nebraska (BHECN) at UNMC will be the expert consultant for the clinical demonstration project.
Additionally, colleagues from UNMC Department of Psychiatry, the UNMC College of Nursing, UNMC Developmental Pediatrics Department, MMI Department of Psychology, and UNMC Behavioral Health Education Center of Nebraska (BHECN) will be involved in the clinical demonstration project.
In the clinical demonstration (CD) project, MMI will conduct project development and implementation within a network of affiliated rural and underserved urban primary care clinics, in order to introduce an innovative pathway to enhancing integrated (primary care mental/behavioral health) practice in underserved areas using tele-behavioral health.
On-site, licensed case coordinators/clinicians will provide initial BH screening, assessment, initial treatment, case management and telehealth referral for youths with greater mental/behavioral health needs.
For children and youth with severe behavioral disorders requiring “secondary or tertiary” referral, a tele-behavioral health team of team of specialists from the UNMC psychiatry, psychology, developmental pediatrics, and psychiatric nursing staff will provide consultation using telephone or telehealth to primary care providers on management of behavioral disorders. The consultant team will provide direct services to children and families where therapeutically indicated. The consultant team will also facilitate tertiary care that might include residential care placement and/or psychiatric hospitalization.