The collaborative care model: Improving access to children's mental health care

Current accessibility to child and adolescent mental health services is negatively affected by the shortage of mental health providers. The primary care provider or pediatrician is in a key position to identify behavioral health concerns, coordinate services, and provide treatment to the patient.

This project aimed to improve access to children's mental health care by creating and implementing an educational course on the collaborative care model (CoCM), a model of integrated care that embeds mental health professionals into the primary care setting.

Pre- and post-surveys were embedded in the online CoCM course to track course completion, identify clinical staff knowledge, and identify clinical staff interest in implementing the CoCM in practice.

Following project implementation, clinical staffs' responses from the pre- and post-surveys represented an increase in knowledge and interest in implementing the CoCM in practice after taking the online course.

This project suggests further exploration of funding and planning to implement a pilot of the CoCM in a primary care practice setting.