Innovations Institute has partnered with the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Union County, Ohio (MHRBUC) in a new U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration grant of just over $1 million to expand needed infrastructure, processes, and services to build strong early childhood mental health services.
The funds will help address an observed increase in mental health needs for children from birth to eight years old—consistent with nation-wide findings—and gaps in the continuum of care for the youngest residents of Union County. As the fastest growing county in Ohio, the needs of Union County families are rapidly changing. This underscores the need to be data driven in the approach to this work and to focus on continuous quality improvement (CQI) that ensures all families have access to services.
Margo Candelaria, Ph.D., research associate professor at UConn’s School of Social Work and co-director of the Parent, Infant, Early Childhood (PIEC) team at Innovations Institute will serve as the evaluation principal investigator for the project. Accordingly, Innovations Institute will develop an evaluation plan with annual goals and specific measures, relying on established evaluation practices. Evaluation approaches will include the use of survey tools to collect required client outcome data, progress measures and training impact; qualitative interviews to assess family and provider experiences; and network analyses to track partner growth.
Innovations Institute will also engage in collaborative data interpretation to inform progress using continuous quality improvement cycles, data dashboards and visualizations, and implementation science principles to ensure that the project decisions, changes, and adjustments are data driven. Researchers will examine who is served (e.g. race, ethnicity, geography), how and where families are served, and identify access and implementation barriers. Kate Sweeney, assistant extension professor at UConn School of Social Work and co-director of the PIEC team at Innovations Institute will offer technical assistance and serve as a content expert. She will assist with implementation of infant and early childhood mental health evidence-based programs including the Pyramid Model, Circle of Security Parenting, and the Chicago Parenting Program.
Collectively, the Innovations PIEC team will work with MHRBUC to expand the array of infant and early childhood mental services, build the workforce capacity to work with Union County’s youngest children, and use evaluation practices to demonstrate positive outcomes and inform needed programmatic changes.
This Building Strong Foundations project builds on the work of MHRBUC and its partners to link child serving systems, behavioral health providers, and payers in support of expanded mental health services to Union County youth.