HCPC Receives Telecom Grant To Build "Safety Net-Work" For At-Risk Children

Texas' at-risk children will now have expedited access to mental health and social services agencies and experts through a statewide collaborative effort led by The University of Texas-Houston Harris County Psychiatric Center (UT-Houston HCPC) and supported by a $500,000 grant from the Texas Telecommunication Infrastructure Fund Board (TIF).

The grant to the Harris County/Bowie County Collaborative is the largest non-clinical grant ever received by UT-Houston HCPC, a 200-bed acute mental health care facility operated by UT-Houston, and supported by the Texas Mental Health/Mental Retardation Authority and Harris County.

TIF funding will support the implementation of "Priority Children: An Urban/Rural Intervention Collaborative." Using a state-of-the-art interactive teleconferencing system, the project will connect mental health professionals, teachers and counselors from eight school districts, protective service workers and juvenile probation officers for a variety of interactive programs, including one-on-one consultations, referrals and educational programs.

The technology will allow for the rapid communication of identified psychosocial problems that are interfering with a child's ability to successfully function in the school setting and immediate referral to appropriate services," says Dr. Andrew Harper, assistant professor and chief of child and adolescent services at UT-Houston HCPC, and the project's principal investigator.

The members of the collaboration are: UT-Houston HCPC; The University of Texas-Houston Mental Sciences Institute (MSI) and its Center for Human Development Research; Harris County Juvenile Probation; Children's Protective Services (CPS); Mental Health/Mental Retardation (MHMR) Authority; and the Aldine, Clear Creek, Deer Park, Galena Park, Goose Creek, Houston, Spring and Texarkana Independent School Districts (ISD).

The project primarily will target elementary school children, ages 4 through 11, who are economically disadvantaged and may have learning disabilities, mental or developmental problems, display behavioral problems or are victims of abuse or neglect. They may also live in communities where there are few needed services available or it is difficult for families to access such services. Many of the schools in the partnering districts are several miles from any mental health services, and the agencies themselves are miles away from each other, making consultation and assessment of needs difficult.

TIF monies will be used to equip designated sites at all of the above agencies with teleconferencing equipment, allowing each to contact any one or more of the other sites on this network. For example, a CPS worker in downtown Houston could talk directly to a UT-Houston HCPC physician about a student she was consulted about by a teacher from an outlying district school. Or, a probation officer in Houston, trying to develop a treatment plan for a youngster, could easily consult with counselors at the "boot camp" facility where the youth is staying, which may be 50 miles away.

"We will be networking those individuals, such as classroom teachers, who are often the first to recognize when a child is in trouble," says Gerilyn Konigsberg, director of public information at UT-Houston HCPC, whose area will coordinate the tele-education activities. "They then will be able to reach out to mental health and social service communities and access the appropriate services for the children and their families."

"Priority Children will be a cost-effective model for delivery of services and will greatly improve the access of children from underserved rural and urban communities to mental health and social services that will allow them to learn and succeed in school," says David Small, administrator of UT-Houston HCPC. "Problems of lack of nearby mental health services, unfamiliarity or apprehension by families, lack of financial resources, and red tape will be eliminated because folks will be able to interact and react immediately."

The collaborative project grew out of a pilot program initiated in 1998 with Houston ISD connecting UT-Houston HCPC faculty with teachers at Whittier Elementary School for weekly consultation and educational sessions. Although currently the teleconferencing link is only between UT-Houston HCPC and Whittier, the network allows for the linking of a number of other sites.

The program will formally begin this fall with the networking of Whittier Elementary School and 26 other schools in nine school districts to CPS, MHMRA, and Juvenile Probation, as well as UT-Houston HCPC.

"Due to the tremendous interest in such a program among those who work with at-risk children, even from locations as far away as Texarkana, we decided to expand the program in all directions and applied for support from the state," says UT-Houston HCPC Executive Director Dr. Robert Guynn, who is also chair of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the UT-Houston Medical School. Drs. Guynn, Harper, Ann Saunders, division chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at UT-Houston and Sharon Morgan, assistant professor and UT-Houston HCPC psychologist, helped develop the program along with a team composed of partner members.

"The name `Priority Children,' says it all," Dr. Guynn says. "This project will make sure that children who need help, get it and get it promptly. It will act as a safety net, assuring that when a child is identified with problems, that he or she doesn't get lost in the system. The volume of at-risk children continues to expand while the resources of the schools continue to be overburdened - we aren't just facing a crisis, we're in a crisis."

"After we identify the psychosocial needs of these children, it is vital that they get help as soon as possible," says Dr. Harper. "Otherwise, we face losing them as dropouts - from both school and society. Their future, and ours, depends on their being able to get the best help and being able to get it now."

"HCPC's mission includes outreach and community service," Small says. "This program certainly meets that goal and also our mandates as a publicly funded agency to serve Texas' citizens. Good mental health begins in childhood; the more we know about human genetics, biochemistry, growth and development and the impact of environment and culture, the more we understand how crucial early intervention is to preventing anti-social behaviors and more serious mental disorders, but also to giving at-risk children the hope and the tolls they require to create lives of meaning and success."

"As healers and educators, we at UT-Houston, MSI and UT-Houston HCPC are all very committed to the success of this collaboration," says Dr. M. David Low, president of the UT-Houston Health Science Center. "We are proud that the state has recognized its value and urgency of its need for the future of Texas - its youth - by putting its resources behind this ground-breaking project.

-From Harris County Psychiatric Center

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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