Brief Interventions Can Improve Children’s Behavioral Health Services — Connecticut by the Numbers

As the need for behavioral health services for children is on the rise nationally and in Connecticut, a flexible array of treatment options that can be matched to family needs and preferences is ideal for both families and providers. We make the following recommendations to incorporate brief interventions into Connecticut’s service array:

·         Expand the service array by training clinicians in brief and single-session interventions that meet the needs of the outpatient population. SSC is one promising model to consider.

·         Identify and address regulations and billing requirements for use of brief interventions in outpatient settings, as well as task shifting to support non-clinical staff who may be able to deliver SSIs and support other aspects of care.

·         Establish a stepped-care approach to outpatient services with protocols to match families to the most appropriate level of services, including brief/single-session interventions. This process should use standardized assessments, measurement-based care, and family preferences to make initial recommendations as well as ongoing treatment planning and changes to services.

·         Once models are available, increase public awareness and advertising about brief and single-session interventions as a treatment option.

·         Evaluate the use of brief interventions and their effectiveness and potential cost savings. Use data to understand for which populations (e.g., ages, diagnoses) brief interventions are most effective. Use data to inform improvements to stepped care approaches and algorithms.

·         Expand the behavioral health workforce to include professionals who are not mental health clinicians, and explore stepped-care approaches that involve these individuals in the delivery of appropriate brief interventions. Consider piloting such an approach with non-clinical staff delivering the SSC model.

This is an excerpt of an Issue Brief published by the Child Health and Development Institute. To read the entire brief, Making the Most of the Moment, go here.  It was written by Kellie Randall, Jason Lang, Heather Solak, and Jessica Schleider (Stony Brook University).  For more information, visit www.chdi.org.