Increasing Access for Early Childhood Mental Health Care Services - The Loyola Center for Counseling & Education (LCCE) is applying for funding to support the proposed project Increasing Access for Early Childhood Mental Health Care Services. The LCCE is housed within the College of Nursing & Health at Loyola University New Orleans. Since its inception in 2019, LCCE has been committed to providing effective mental health counseling services on a sliding scale to underserved families, couples, groups, and individuals at every stage of life. In tandem with clinical services, LCCE supervises exemplary training for graduate students in Loyola University’s Department of Counseling.
With support from the Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Program, the LCCE aims to improve outcomes for children from birth up to 12 years of age by developing, maintaining, or enhancing infant and early childhood mental health promotion, intervention, and treatment services. Providing access to these services to this target population will be addressing a significant need in our community. The target population for this project includes children up to age 12 in need of access to mental health care who are unable to access these services with a provider that bills Medicaid or private insurance. There is a significant lack of available providers in the eight parishes of the Greater New Orleans area and the majority are either not taking new patients or do not accept Medicaid clients. The target population will be low-income and mirror the demographics of the Greater New Orleans area: White alone not Hispanice: 43%; African American: 33%; Hispanic: 11%; Asian, Pacific Islander not Hispanic: 3%; and Two or More Races: 4%.
With grant funding, the LCCE will accomplish the following goals and measurable objectives:
Program Goals:
1. Provide an additional access point for children of the Greater New Orleans area in need of mental health care services who are unable to secure treatment from other sources
Measurable Objective: Serve 220 children up to age 12 over 5 years
2.Provide children with access to comprehensive screening and evidence-based therapies
Measurable Objective:100% of clients will receive a risk & needs assessment at in-take and access to evidence-based Trauma-Informed Care and Child Centered Play Therapy
3.Create a community of early childhood educators and care providers equipped to recognize children in need of mental healthcare services
Measurable Objective:Establish 20 partnerships with early care and education programs, child and family-serving professionals over five years to provide educational and training outreach services and provide 2 workshops per year
4. Provide specialized training for mental health clinicians in infant and early childhood mental health, including specific training in promising and evidence-based practices and models for prevention, early intervention, and treatment
Measurable Objective: 52 graduate students will be trained and certified to use evidence-based Trauma-Informed Care and Child Centered Play Therapy over five years
The proposed project will also collect all SAMHSA required data and program specific data, create a QI plan, and work with a Lead Evaluator who will monitor the effectiveness and quality of the services provided and the progress towards meeting the project goals and deliverables.
