NATIONAL TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE CENTER FOR CHILDREN’S MENTAL HEALTH

BACKGROUND

The National Technical Assistance Center is dedicated to helping states, tribes, territories, and communities discover, apply, and sustain innovative and collaborative solutions that improve the social, emotional, and behavioral well being of children and families.

We enhance and strengthen the work of states, tribes, territories, and communities as they strive to achieve comprehensive mental health delivery systems for children and families.  System of care values and principles guide our work with states and communities and result in approaches that are:

Areas of FOCUS

The National Technical Assistance Center focuses on priority areas for developing and implementing comprehensive service delivery systems: policy development, leadership development, strategic planning, interagency collaboration, family involvement, cultural and linguistic competence, early intervention, early childhood mental health systems of care, evaluation, interagency management information systems, evidence-based and promising practices, financing and managed care, workforce development, and mediation and negotiation training.  The National Technical Assistance Center activities reach diverse stakeholders including state and local policymakers, administrators of all child-serving systems, service providers, families, youth, advocates, researchers and evaluators, and educators.

• The sixth National Policy Academy for state, tribal, and territorial applicants will be held in December 2006.  The Policy Academy brings together delegations from states, tribes and territories to do intensive work on designing new policies to improve service delivery and outcomes for children and families with mental health needs.  Extensive pre-, onsite, and follow-up work is done with the delegations to maximize successful policy development.  Applications to participate in Policy Academies are sent to all governors and tribal authorities.
• Leadership Academies and Leadership training are offered for family and professional leaders of the federal CMHS Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and Their Families Program grantees, leaders of statewide family organizations, and state mental health agencies. The academies and training are intensive and designed to enhance the leadership skills of participants who are implementing systems of care.  The curriculum-based training has a strong focus on leadership and diversity.
• Primer Hands On: Systems of Care Training for Leaders is an intensive course on understanding the values, principles and operational components of effective systems of care.  The two-day course is designed for state, community and family leaders in systems of care.  Primer Hands On training is held each Fall and Spring in Washington, DC and once a year for all federally funded comprehensive community systems of care grantees.  Adaptations of the training are offered for child welfare leaders and directors of family organizations.  A special train-the-trainers course will be offered in March 2006 for individuals working with Spanish speaking communities.

INDIVIDUALIZED TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE AND CONSULTATION

National Technical Assistance Center faculty and staff provide assistance to states, territories, tribes and communities on a wide variety of key topics either by phone or on-site.  Faculty and staff frequently work intensively with individual states and communities around issues related to their systems development.

• Technical assistance on cultural and linguistic competence is provided through a partnership between the National Technical Assistance Center and the National Center for Cultural Competence (NCCC). The mission of the NCCC is to increase the capacity of health care and mental health programs to design, implement, and evaluate culturally and linguistically competent service delivery systems. The NCCC conducts an array of activities to fulfill its mission, including: 1) training, technical assistance, and consultation; 2) networking, linkages, and information exchange; and 3) knowledge and product development and dissemination. Major emphasis is placed on policy development, assistance in conducting cultural competence organizational self-assessments, and strategic approaches to the systematic incorporation of culturally competent values, policy, structures, and practices within organizations.
• Technical assistance on early identification, early intervention, and behavioral health services and supports for young children is provided for states, territories, tribes and communities that are designing and implementing early childhood mental health systems of care. Technical assistance is also available through Informational resources, including monographs on financing strategies, mental health consultation in early childhood settings, and models of medical home program approaches to improving behavioral health.
• Faculty are available to provide technical assistance to communities around addressing and preventing youth violence and on conflict mediation and resolution across agencies to improve client outcomes.  Mediation training is often provided for child welfare, juvenile justice, and juvenile court staff.
• Faculty also provide technical assistance on collaboration across child-serving agencies at the state and community levels to improve service organization, delivery and financing.  A specialty focus is collaboration between child welfare and mental health agencies, including policy development, improving program services, and collaborating on financing service delivery.
• Technical assistance on building evaluation into systems of care and on building interagency management information systems is provided in a variety of ways including an ongoing national scan of state and community evaluation activities posted on the National Technical Assistance Center web site, issues of Data Matters newsletter, a management information system Toolkit, the Technical Assistance on Management Information Systems (TAMIS) listserv, Interagency MIS Roundtable Meetings, and conference calls on evaluation strategies.
• The National Technical Assistance Center provides support to the Child, Youth and Family Division of the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors.  We support the Division in membership communication and in accomplishing its action agenda.
• The State Infrastructure Grant program, recently funded by CMHS, awarded funds to six states and one Tribe to build infrastructure that will improve the integration of mental health and substance abuse services for youth and their families.  The National Technical Assistance Center provides technical assistance to grantees on meeting their infrastructure development goals and objectives and implementing collaborative service delivery.

TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE PUBLICATIONS

The National TA Center develops publications, toolkits and issue briefs on current and emerging topics and best practices in the field.  A listing of publications is available on the National Technical Assistance Center web site.

• Strategies for understanding, planning for and implementing cultural and linguistic competence in systems of care are the focus of publications on the web site of the National Center for Cultural Competence and include, A Guide to Planning and Implementing Cultural Competence: Organizational Self Assessment, Planning for Cultural and Linguistic Competence in Systems of Care, Getting Started…Moving On, and Cultural Competence Planning Guide.  Three new issue briefs are available that showcase promising community practices in promoting cultural and linguistic competence.
• The National TA Center publishes Data Matters, a summary of current information and resources on program evaluation, interagency management systems, and evidenced based practices. Data Matters is written for a broad audience.  Data Matters #6, the most recent issue, gives an introduction to evidence-based practices and is available on our web site or it can be ordered.
• Building Systems of Care: A Primer, by Sheila Pires, is a detailed tool kit for learning the processes and structures necessary to build effective systems of care.  This comprehensive publication covers all components of systems building and provides many examples of effective community practices.
• A Family’s Guide to the Child Welfare System is a hands-on resource for families who need to understand and negotiate the many programs in the child welfare system.  The guide is a great resource for direct services providers and advocates to share with families.  The guide is also very useful as a training tool with direct service providers to understand the child welfare system from a family’s perspective.
• Another recent issue brief is available on Transforming the Workforce in Children’s Mental Health.  The brief is available on the National Technical Assistance Center web site.
• An Issue Brief On Systems of Care, by Beth Stroul, discusses the framework of systems of care in a changing mental health environment.
• Technical assistance on networking with child welfare around meeting the mental health needs of children in foster care and child protective services is provided through a series of monographs available from the National TA Center. Two new documents are Meeting the Mental Health Needs of Children in the Foster Care System: Strategies for Implementation and Meeting the Mental Health Needs of Children in the Foster Care System: Summary of State and Community Efforts.  A variety of Center activities promote collaboration between the child welfare and mental health systems, including information on the Adoption and Safe Families Act, the Family Opportunity Act, and on promising examples of collaborative initiatives.