Tulsa Children's Mental Health Initiative - System of Care - The Tulsa Children's Mental Health Initiative - System of Care (TCMHI SOC) project will identify and assess Tulsa are children and youth ages 0-21 with or at risk for severe emotional disturbances (SED) or serious mental illness (SMI) and their families and will connect them to a fully integrated continuum of coordinated mental health services. By leveraging collaborative partnerships to increase Tulsa's investment in children's mental health, the project will align with the city's goal, as stated in its collaborative strategy, Resilient Tulsa, of decreasing the racial gap in life expectancy by 2024. Over the course of the four-year grant, the TCMHI SOC expects to reach 450 children, youth and young adults with mental health needs who are living in the city of Tulsa and Tulsa County. The TCMHI SOC will focus its activities on five goals. These goals include (1) a sustainable infrastructure, established by TCMHI SOC Governance Team, that will support the System of Care (SOC) for children and youth at risk for or with SED/SMI and their families; (2) decreasing behavioral health emergency room encounters and the need for more restrictive care by strengthening and integrating Tulsa's current crisis system; (3) increasing access to an array of evidence-based and culturally relevant crisis stabilization, intensive home and community-based, and targeted and intensive case management services; (4) increasing youth and family voice, leadership, and support services in the city of Tulsa; and (5) increasing the number of pediatric primary care and emergency room providers to address youth suicide prevention and mental health crises. The TCHMI SOC will pursue these goals by hiring a project director and a lead family coordinator, and creating a governance team. The governance team will develop a training plan and oversee the community needs assessment, which will identify gaps in services, racial and ethnic health disparities, and cultural and linguistic competency needs. A crisis advisory group (CAG) will map out the current system and develop a plan that identifies strategies and evidence-based practices, which will be implemented to address gaps in crisis care and improve crisis hotline/988 call responses. A cross-system approach to delivering crisis stabilization, intensive home and community-based services, and case management will be developed using the outcomes of the needs assessment. The TCHMI SOC will work with local family-run organizations to ensure families and youth are represented and active on the governance team. With support from the lead family coordinator, TCHMI SOC will assess the capacity of family and peer supports and develop a plan to increase that capacity. In addition, TCHMI SOC will partner with the Oklahoma Child and Mental Health Access Program (OKCAPMAP) to identify primary care providers and emergency room gaps in triage and referral, and to ensure that warm handoffs to crisis providers are taking place.
