HIGHLIGHTS

Texas Child Health Access Through Telemedicine

Created by the 86th Legislature, the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium (TCMHCC) spent its first year launching initiatives through 12 health-related institutions of higher education across the state to address urgent mental health challenges and improve the mental health care system in this state in relation to children and adolescents. This session, the state legislature saw the value of the consortium and increased funding to continue key initiatives and maintain systems of care for Texas children.

The Texas Child Health Access Through Telemedicine (TCHATT) initiative gives schools access to health providers via telemedicine and telehealth to help meet the mental health needs of children and adolescents. Dell Medical School is one of the health-related institutions of higher education included in the TCHATT program, with an interlocal agreement with Integral Care, to provide student mental health evaluations, ensure smooth linkage to ongoing services and consultation and trainings for teachers.  TCHATT clinicians include Dell Medical School’s child and adolescent psychiatrist and psychologist and other licensed mental health professionals.

The social isolation and psychosocial stress of the COVID-19 pandemic has taken its toll on children, adolescents and families struggling with mental health concerns. The mental health sequelae of this pandemic are likely to affect our community for years to come. TCHATT has been a wonderful community collaboration and service that has allowed us to meet the acute and chronic mental health needs of our community within the school setting. To date, we have provided over 2,000 telehealth appointments to 549 unique students. We are grateful for the continued support of the Texas legislature as we look to continue and expand the scope of our program within Central Texas. – Roshni L. Koli, MD, Medical Director, Pediatric Mental Health, Dell Children’s Medical Center

TCHATT is a free telemedicine program provided through our collaboration with Dell Medical School, school districts and primary care providers. The program can be utilized whether a student is on campus or in distance learning at home.

Integral Care has also successfully collaborated with the University of Texas School of Psychology to bring on interns and externs for supervision to this experience. This expanded commitment to TCMHCC and early identification and treatment for mental health issues demonstrates Texas’s continued commitment to children’s mental health and well-being.

Share Our New Teen Suicide Prevention Videos!

Suicide numbers for ages 10-24 have been on the rise since 2007.  We hope you’ll share our hopeful new videos with your network. One video is for teens, the other for a parent/teacher audience. Both are in English and Spanish. The videos dig into the warning signs and how to reach out for help.

According to a CDC report released in June, emergency department visits for suspected suicide attempts rose among 12 to 25-year-olds between January of 2019 and May of 2021. Among girls 12 to 17, average weekly visits to the emergency department for suspected attempts from February 2021 to March 2021 was 50.6% higher than the same period a year prior. Among boys of the same age, the increase was 3.7%.  It’s important to note that these were attempts, and CDC data for actual suicides in 2020 has not yet been released. Until that data is released, it is unclear the effect of the pandemic and racial reckoning of the past year and a half.

We’d like to thank the Moody Foundation for the generous grant to create these videos. We hope you’ll share them with friends, colleagues, perhaps your child’s school or other organizations.

Foster Children Deserve a Safe Landing

A foster child and foster family can be successful with the right support at the right time. Safe Landing was launched two years ago in response to the state’s foster care crisis – not having enough foster homes thereby leaving youth to live in Child Protective Services (CPS) offices. The program was created  with the support of Travis County and Mission Capitol with the goal of increasing the number of foster homes that can care for youth with complex behavioral health needs.

Safe Landing’s first phase built relationships with child placing agencies, providing intensive clinical and case management support to their foster youth and families. The program offers in-home child and family counseling, parent coaching, help creating a safety plan and mental health crisis response. Children recently placed in foster care may have complex behavioral health needs which require prompt attention and the right therapeutic interventions.

“A lot of our kids would be in a different place without them. We need therapists who can see the child within 24 to 48 hours, or we could be looking at a crisis situation. Before this program there could be as much as a 4-month wait to get an assessment with a therapist. Safe Landing staff bridge what was a gap in the system.” –  Samantha Schwartz, Program Manager, DePelchin Children’s Center

the Safe Landing team

In addition to stabilizing crisis situations, our therapists provide a quick connection to psychiatric services, ongoing therapy for the child and tools for the parent to build their bond. Addressing past trauma and building trust and attachment is the recipe for success. Ms. Schwartz describes a 9-year-old child with serious behavioral struggles who had the potential to bounce around the foster care system. With a Safe Landing therapist’s ongoing help, that child and foster family are signing adoption paperwork.

The number of youth living in CPS offices, known as “Children without Placement”, started to increase again in 2021. Safe Landing is a key collaborator with Travis County Child Protective Services, Texas Department of Family and Protective Services and other foster care community organizations such as Partnerships for Children, Foster Angels and Casey Family in supporting these children. They help the youth stabilize and transition to a more permanent placement. Recently a Safe Landing therapist provided crucial support for a teenager without placement quarantining in a hotel isolation facility for COVID-19. Our therapist made daily clinical check ins and provided vital emotional support until the youth could be released from quarantine and placed in a family setting.

In 2 years, the program has helped 61 children. As we move into year 3 of the program, our goal is to reduce the number of children living in CPS offices by providing intensive support to foster families, so they feel confident in caring for children with complex behavioral health concerns. A big thank you to our collaborators – together we are making a difference and helping children and families achieve health and well-being.

Back to School Tips

For you parents out there, our school-based therapist team suggests these 10 tips to support your child’s mental health. Download the pdf, print it and post it on the fridge.