Children’s Health℠ and Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute are collaborating on a community-based pediatric mental health initiative to change the way we identify and address these concerns among kids in the North Texas area. The program, which was developed to address the mental health epidemic adolescents are facing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and crisis warnings sounded by the U.S. Surgeon General, provided key training and resources to 75 area providers in its inaugural year, who collectively treat nearly 150,000 area children and families.

While pediatric emotional and behavioral health challenges were a growing concern before the pandemic, the impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of children and adolescents have become a public health crisis. In 2020, emergency rooms saw a 24% increase in mental health-related visits for children ages 5-11, and a 31% increase for older children.

There are three key parts of this fresh approach, also referred to as the Behavioral Health Integration and Guidance (BHIG) initiative:

1. Training community pediatricians, where families usually have trust and regular access, to identify mental health issues and provide early therapies for things like mild-to-moderate anxiety and depression. Online training and live examples with a demonstration clinic cover a range of topics for participating providers, as well as support for more serious cases.

2. Evaluating patient- and provider-level data and outcomes to inform evidence-based practices that will ensure consistency and quality within pediatricians’ offices.

3. Advocating for sustainability and scalability of this approach by changing the way stakeholders, insurance carriers and the legislature addresses mental health needs of children.

Due to the significant achievements of the pilot program, the initiative has already expanded to engage more providers. Philanthropic support was crucial to launch this program and investments from our community to support this initiative total more than $28 million, as of Dec. 31, 2022. Additional results include:    

• Comfort of providers to evaluate and diagnose specific psychological conditions, improved billing strategies for behavioral health visits and ability to deploy tools that can intervene with early stages of depression and anxiety among their patients.

• Extremely high levels of benefit from the program, with more than 75% of participants reporting they would recommend the program to other providers. 

• Development and implementation of formal evaluation tools and measures that demonstrate positive results and areas for future focus.

• Advocacy for the implementation of Texas Senate Bill 672 to promote the broad adoption and optimization of collaborative care billing models through Medicaid that will support the integration of mental health screening and care in primary pediatric practice.

“The impact of this initiative has already proved to be extraordinary,” said Andy Keller, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of the Meadows Institute. “We have been able to provide a helpful path forward for pediatricians, children and their families, as well as catch and manage issues before they have the potential to advance. We look forward to the future of this initiative and continuing to provide mental health care to children across the state.”