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| Vol. 23, No. 16 |
| September 1, 2001 |
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UT-HCPC Mental Health Tele-Education Network By FRANCES DRESSMAN Harris County Psychiatric Center Problem:
Solution:
The University of Texas-Harris County Psychiatric Center's "Priority Children" tele-education project - a cost-effective, efficient way to get mental health services directly to teachers of at-risk students through teleconferencing.
From a one-school, self-funded pilot project three years ago, Priority Children, An Urban/Rural Tele-Education Project, has grown to serve educators, and, in turn, parents and students, at 23 schools in nine school districts. The program also serves the Harris County Juvenile Detention Center, providing mental health education and services to juvenile probation workers, teachers and other childcare professionals working with at-risk children and youth.
Moving into its third full year of programming, "Priority Children" offers two-way interactive teleconferencing programs three times a week to targeted at-risk schools and their staffs in the Aldine, Clear Creek, Deer Park, Galena Park, Goose Creek, Houston and Spring districts, as well as to the Texarkana school district.
Seven sites operated by the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department also participate in the program. These sites include the Harris County Youth Village, the Brown Charter Schools at the Burnett-Bayland Home and Delta 3 Boot Camp. Additionally, several Harris County Child Protective Services sites were added during the past year.
The expansion of the project, which began with one weekly teleconference between physicians and psychologists at UT-HCPC and teachers at Whittier Elementary School in the Houston ISD, was primarily the result of a 1999 grant of nearly $500,000 from the Texas Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund Board.
The tele-education project is designed to provide mental health services to schools with large populations of children deemed at-risk for failure in school because of a variety of socioeconomic factors. The main programming involves educating teachers about various mental disorders, appropriate treatments and strategies for dealing with troublesome behavior, and discussions of the problems at-risk children face. Local resources are also identified, so that teachers may refer parents for help for their children.
Dr. Andrew Harper, UT-HCPC director of child and adolescent services, produces the programming, which utilizes the faculty of the UT-Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, professionals at UT-HCPC, and other local agencies, such as the Harris County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority, Community Youth Services and the Houston Police Department.
From this, the services offered have broadened to provide consultation between therapists and school or juvenile probation personnel about specific children and referrals for treatment. All information is kept as confidential as possible.
The teleconferencing network, whose "hub" studios are located at UT-HCPC and The University of Texas Mental Sciences Institute, allows all sites to connect with each other separately or in clusters. The network has been used for other child-related services, including teacher inservices, juvenile probation court arraignments, pilot programming for special education students, school district employment interviews and training sessions for school nurses.
"Last summer," says project facilitator Don Baston, "we enlarged our repertoire by providing in-service programs to the school nursing staff of the Galena Park district. The full-day program included presentations by UT-HCPC physicians, social workers, psychologists and nurses on various aspects of children's mental health, including information about Attention Deficit Disorder, sexual and physical abuse and family violence, and identification and recommendations for learning and behavior disorders. Nurses who participated in this non-traditional way of doing in-service education, generally gave the presentation and the content high marks."
Special evening classes for parents of children in the targeted schools or at the juvenile probation sites was begun last fall via the teleconferencing network. Mental health professionals from UT-HCPC and the UT-Mental Sciences Institute helped parents learn how to build their child's self esteem, how to communicate and listen to their child, understand the use of natural and logical consequences in child discipline learn and how to hold a family meeting.
With the opening of a special inpatient unit at UT-HCPC for adjudicated youth, the "network" teleconferencing studios are used regularly for staffing conferences between
UT-HCPC staff and the juvenile probation caseworkers for these youth, located at a variety of juvenile probation centers.
Teleconferencing facilities have also been used by juvenile probation officials for hearings, saving either the court or the juvenile from having to be taken across town for a hearing. Juvenile probation hopes to expand its use of the network for other consultation and procedural services.
"We are slowly expanding our services by providing targeted programming to specific audiences," says Geri Konigsberg, director of the UT-HCPC Department of Public Information, which oversees the project. "Eventually, we see this program evolving from tele-education to teleassessment and telepsychiatry - actually providing diagnostic and treatment services to individual children and their families."
Priority Children gets high marks from the teachers, school nurses, and juvenile workers it has served. More than 600 weekly evaluations completed by teachers and other staff attending the sessions consistently gave the presentations high ratings, with both the program and speakers achieving 90 percent positive scores on the evaluations.
The program has also received recognition from several sources, including the Premiere Cares Award, an outstanding volunteer award from the East District of Houston Independent School District, the American Psychiatric Association Merit Award, and recognition from the American College of Healthcare Executives. Additionally, the program has been featured at a number of psychiatric conferences, including the American Psychiatric Association.
Future plans call for an expansion of the program into other school districts in Harris County, and using the network for such programs as continuing education for teachers, staff development sessions, evaluations and re-evaluations of children in need of services, and therapeutic interventions for staff working with children.
©2006 Texas Medical Center E-Mail: tmcinfo@texmedctr.tmc.edu URL: http://www.tmc.edu/tmcnews/09_01_01/page_22.html |