Building a Network to Address a Crisis in Children's Mental Health
“Young people in our state are experiencing significant mental health care needs, which are exacerbated by a chronic shortage of health care and mental health professionals and numerous barriers to accessing care,” said Eric Kurtz, Ph.D., executive director of the Center for Disabilities. “We need to build capacity in our existing health care workforce, and also build that workforce.”
Kurtz led an effort to establish the new program, called Pediatric Mental Health Care Access (PMHCA). A critical aspect of this undertaking, said Kurtz, is to provide specialized training to existing health care providers to better equip them to recognize, diagnose, refer and treat young people with significant mental health needs. The program will also offer specific consultations to health care providers needing expert guidance. Trainings will be virtual, and typically offered once per month, and same-day provider-to-provider consultations will be available. “We’re assembling an expert team of behavioral health professionals to provide these consultations,” Kurtz explained.
Training sessions will be accessible online via the University of South Dakota’s Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) video-conferencing platform. The Center for Disabilities will manage those trainings and content with input from program partners.
Those partners are members of a broad and impressive coalition. Kurtz identified and acknowledged the USD Sanford School of Medicine, Avera Health, Sanford Health, Horizon Health, South Dakota Department of Health-MCH Title V Program, South Dakota Department of Social Services-Division of Behavioral Health, Helpline Center, Urban Indian Health, and Monument Health as playing cooperative and participatory roles in the program.
Partners will not only serve as advisors to the program, but they will also champion the program within their own systems and networks.
“This ambitious and vitally needed program couldn’t proceed without the expertise of our partners,” said Kurtz. “I am grateful and deeply impressed with the commitment each of our partners has already demonstrated.”
Training programs within PMHCA will eventually be offered to students in various aspects of health care at South Dakota institutions. Teachers and others working in the state’s schools and educational system will also have opportunities for specialized training.
Another PMHCA objective is to build and maintain a statewide pediatric behavioral health resource website.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has provided $2.1 million to this new program. The program’s first components were launched in October 2023.
This story was originally published in “South Dakota Possibilities 2023,” an annual publication by the University of South Dakota Center for Disabilities. Access the full issue at this link.
About the Center for Disabilities
The Center for Disabilities is part of a national network of federally designated centers known as University Centers for Excellence in Development Disabilities, Education, Research and Service (UCEDDS). The mission of the Center for Disabilities is to improve the lives of individuals with disabilities and their families across the state of South Dakota, the region and nationally. The Center for Disabilities carries out its diverse capacity-building efforts through clinical services, interdisciplinary training, continuing education, research, information dissemination and policy/advocacy work. Its work focuses on the strengths and contributions of people with disabilities, and works across multiple sectors including healthcare, education, mental health, and human services.
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