Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain and the Department of Defense Child Collaboration Study | Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain

Accessing and navigating services for children with developmental, emotional, or behavioral (D/E/B) health concerns has greater complexity for military families, geographically-dispersed families, and families who are highly mobile or lack providers near their homes. University of Minnesota’s Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain (MIDB) has received $3.5 million to lower these barriers as a partner in the Department of Defense Child Collaboration Study “A Research Collaboratory to Explore Best Practices for Expanding Access to Care Through Expansion and Support of Telehealth Care for Children and Families with Behavioral Health Needs.” MIDB’s team of clinicians and researchers will develop three platforms that are intended to broaden mental health worker capacity and improve family access to care.

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The Project ECHO® (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) model is being used to develop and expand mental health provider capacity throughout Minnesota. Each ECHO session is a virtual collaborative forum on topics that address unmet needs in that specific region. University of Minnesota specialists facilitate synchronous “hub and spoke” connections with providers who support rural, highly mobile, and military-connected families to discuss best practices with didactic and case-based learning. The MIDB team is also developing telehealth satellite site capacity to improve access of resources by both providers and families.

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Bringing Together Providers to Broaden Care Access for Children
Expanding Access for Rural, Highly Mobile, and Military-Connected Families

Telehealth is a tool to reach families who reside long distances from specialty providers or to ‘follow along’ with families when they re-locate. Relocation requires families to have the efficacy to navigate new systems of care, educational and state systems. The MIDB team is focused on developing and training on the use of evidence-based models to support family navigation of resources for their children to build the efficacy and resiliency of highly mobile families.

A challenge for both families and providers in geographically-dispersed regions is identification of resources and real-time tracking of resource capacity. Development of actionable telehealth utilization analysis that is presented in a user-friendly interface will enable on-going, ‘just in time’ needs assessment, to target provider training, capacity building, and technical assistance in telehealth to improve access to D/E/B services in rural and highly mobile populations, including military-connected families.