Projects and Grants

University of Washington Workforce Development Task Force

Goal
Improve the preparation of University of Washington students to provide and support evidence based practices (EBPs) for children’s mental health (CMH) when they graduate to the workforce in WA State.

Funding
This project is funded as part of the Evidence Based Practice Institute created as part of WA State HB-1088. Long-term funding is unknown but likely to be a combination of external and university funding.

General Background
Currently the UW has undergraduate and graduate programs in a number of schools who form much of the workforce for Children’s Mental Health (CMH). These include:

School of Social Work - Graduate and Undergraduate
College of Arts and Sciences - Psychology Department
School of Nursing - Dept of Psychosocial and Community Health, Infant Mental Health in Development, and Family and Child Nursing
School of Medicine - Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Department
School of Medicine - Pediatrics Department
College of Education - Educational Psychology, Special Education, Teachers Education Program (elementary and secondary education)
School of Law

These schools and programs have a very limited curriculum with regard to Children’s Mental Health Evidence Based Practices (CMH-EBPs) and thus their graduates are not prepared to provide these treatments as part of the WA state workforce.

There are three groups for whom training in CMH-EBPs is relevant:

Those providing the CMH-EBPs (aka Providers)
Those who will be overseeing or working in close collaboration with the CMH-EBPs (aka “Coordinators of Care”)
Those identifying the need for and recommending CMH-EBPs but not overseeing or collaborating closely with the treatment providers (aka Referrers) (Referrers include: parents and families, pediatricians and other medical providers, children’s services staff, judges and other justice personnel, teachers, principals, and other school personnel.) Referrers do not need to be able to implement the CMH-EBP but do need to know

What they are
For whom and for what are they effective
Any contra-indications and other inherent limitations
How to do know if the version provided is of sufficient quality and quantity

Assumptions

The initial phase of the UW Workforce project focuses on providing coordinated didactic training for all three groups above. While supervised practice in the CMH-EBPs will be crucial, this will be developed in later phases of this project.

To assist UW graduates to implement CMH-EBPs in their careers, it is important these graduates are trained in the underlying skills that cut across CMH-EBPs. By learning underlying skills, specific CMH-EBPs can be learned more effectively and efficiently than if each CMH-EBP training must also teach these basic skills in addition to EBP-specific skills. Examples of these key areas are the principles and strategies of effective parenting skills, CBT, assessment of children for match of problem to CMH-EBP, motivational engagement of patients and families for the treatment across different settings (e.g. schools, foster homes, juvenile justice, etc.), and working with extreme and complex cases in an outpatient environment.

Children’s mental health is a multi-disciplinary endeavor which will be enhanced by providing training in a multi-disciplinary format – therefore trainees from all schools and programs will be trained together.

Initial Projects

University of Washington Graduate Course Series:

Evidence Based Practice for Children’s Mental Health

What is it?

This course series is designed for graduate students in helping professions at the University of Washington. It seeks to improve the preparation of students to provide and support evidence based practices (EBPs) for children’s mental health (CMH) when they graduate to the workforce in Washington State. These crosscutting skills underlie the majority of EBPs for CMH, including:

Effective parenting skills and effective methods of training parents in these skills
Behavior modification, behavior therapy, and cognitive therapy skills
Parental attachment and infant mental health interventions
Assessment of which CMH-EBP is needed and appropriate, if any
Motivational strategies for engaging children and families in CMH-EBPs
Clinical and systems interventions to help adolescents with complex and extreme disorders
Issues of diversity (cultural, gender, rural/urban, sexual orientation, etc.)

Didactic Training

The series consists of four core 3-credit classes starting each summer quarter and spanning the rest of the academic year. In addition, 2-day workshops are held periodically which focus on assessment for evidence based practice and specific evidence based approaches, such as a 2-Stage Assessment for youth at-risk for suicide and Motivational Interviewing.

Quarter	Course	CMH-EBPs of focus
Summer	Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Children & Adolescents with Anxiety-Related Disorders	Trauma Focused CBT
Fall	Effective Parenting Interventions (Parent-mediated interventions)	Helping the Non-Compliant Child
Winter	Using Infant Mental Health Approaches in Practice Settings	Promoting First Relationships
Spring	Clinical and Systems Interventions for Complex and Extreme Disorders	Family Integrated Transitions, DBT Skills, Multisystemic Therapy, Motivational Interviewing

Interdisciplinary Focus

It is the goal of this graduate course series to involve students within graduate programs throughout the university. Based on previous enrollment figures, classes in our series are effective in bringing together student perspectives from a variety of academic programs at the university (Psychiatry, Nursing, Psychology, Education, Social Work, Special Education, Public Health, and School Psychology). In addition, a brief survey of students who have completed at least one course in the series has found that, largely, students report significant benefits to participating within this interdisciplinary structure.

Evaluation

To ensure that students in our course series are learning underlying skills common to CMH-EBPs, students completes measures both prior to and after completion of each course to identify self-perceived skills in the intervention(s) of focus for each course. There is consistent evidence to suggest that a large proportion of students are highly satisfied with the training that they receive in these courses and that they feel significantly more confidence and ability to implement newly learned skills in the course’s intervention of focus upon the conclusion of the semester.

University of Washington Community Lecture Series:

Evidence Based Practice for Children’s Mental Health

What is it?

This monthly seminar series, Referral to Evidence Based Mental Health, is designed to disseminate innovations in evidence-based mental health for children and families. Lectures focus on describing common emotional and behavioral problems, assessment techniques for identifying them, and evidence-based interventions for successful treatment. Presentations are from local and national experts and provide evidence from clinical trials as well as real-world implementations with diverse populations and settings including clinics, schools, social service programs, and juvenile justice.

*Invited Speaker (2011 Series)*	*Title of Lecture*
Eric Bruns, Ph.D. *Associate Professor, University of Washington Director,* National Wraparound Initiative	*The Wraparound Process for Youth with Complex Needs:* Practice Model, Evidence Base, and Role in a System of Care
Suzanne Kerns, Ph.D. *Assistant Professor*, University of Washington	Matching Evidence Based Interventions to the Problems of Children, Youth, and Families
Shannon Dorsey, Ph.D. *Assistant Professor*, University of Washington	*Evidence Based Interventions for Youth:* Anxiety and Trauma-Related Symptoms
Jamila Reid, Ph.D. *Co-Program Director*, The Parenting Clinic	*Preventing and Treating Conduct Problems* *in Young Children:* The Incredible Years Programs
Kevin King, Ph.D. *Assistant Professor*, University of Washington	*Motivational Interviewing for Child and Adolescent Mental Health*
Michael McDonell, Ph.D. *Assistant Professor*, University of Washington	*Best Practice Assessment and Treatment of Serious Mental Illness in Adolescents*
Terry Lee, MD *Assistant Professor*, University of Washington	*Pediatric Bipolar Disorder:* What We Know?
Janine Jones, Ph.D. *Assistant Professor*, University of Washington	*Evidence Based Practice in Multicultural Contexts*
Cari McCarty, Ph.D. *Research Associate Professor,* CCHD, Seattle Children's Hospital	*School-Based Interventions for Childhood and Adolescent Depression*

Interdisciplinary Focus

The series attempts to reach a range of individuals from graduate and undergraduate students, fellows, faculty, staff, community supervisors, and advocates for children’s mental health from across the university and community. Brief demographic data suggests success in this aim; finding that students, faculty, and other affiliated individuals from each of the helping professions at the university attend (Psychiatry, Nursing, Psychology, Education, Social Work, Special Education, Public Health, and School Psychology) and approximately 17% of our audience is from the larger community outside of the university including professionals from treatment agencies, family partners, and family and community members with personal connections to the issues discussed. To extend our reach even further, we record each lecture and disseminate widely through the community, university, and nationally through the youtube community.

Evaluation

At each lecture, a brief feedback measure is administered to determine if lectures are meeting attendee expectations and if the information presented will be applicable to daily work of attendees. In addition, we also collect brief demographic information to see what departments and agencies, attendees come from.

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