Intervention for Multisector Provider Enhancement

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Although expected to serve as gateway providers in referring or helping access mental health services for youth and their parents, child welfare providers often lack the resources and knowledge to do so. Failure to identify the mental health or addiction problems of high-risk youth and refer youths for needed service is a pressing public health concern, one that public social service agencies are uniquely positioned to address. This IMPROVE (Intervention for Multisector Provider Enhancement) study responds to PAR-03-078 for R34 proposals, and fits the criteria for an R34 stage-three intervention development research project. It will refine a decision support intervention to increase social service providers' provision of mental health care, examine the feasibility of the intervention in terms of its impact on the process of care, develop an initial body of data concerning the impact of the intervention preparatory to an R01 national study, and explore the ability to access service use information through state Medicaid and Department of Mental Health billing data on the youthful clients and their parents. The intervention, a computerized program housed in a handheld, will aid workers in providing clients access to appropriate mental health and social services through referral. It is based on the Gateway Provider Model (Stiffman, Pescosolido, & Cabassa, in press), which addresses decision-making and organizational factors that may assist or obstruct service provision. This research benefits from the support of Washington University's NIMH funded Center for Mental Health Service Research, and NIDA funded Comorbidity and Addictions Center. The investigative team has expertise in multisector service provision (Stiffman), analysis of Medicaid, Department of Mental Health, and child welfare data sets (Drake), interventions with Child Welfare (Auslander), computer-based decision-making systems (Carise), decision theory and human factor research (Gustafson), network episode theory (Pescoso]ido), qualitative methods (Ware), and organization assessment in Child Welfare (Glisson). IMPROVE also represents a consortium between the Division of Family Services (Thompson), and Washington University (Stiffman).