| Systems of Care for Children |
| WICHE is working with Wyoming, South Dakota, and Alaska to support enhanced integration of services for children with serious emotional disturbance and their families. This work has been evolving over the past several years and constitutes a major transformation of how services are organized, delivered, financed, and administered. The new systems of care require collaboration between many agencies and providers including mental health, substance abuse, education, social services, juvenile justice, and communities of faith. |
WICHE has supported state Children’s System of Care development and continued evolution in Alaska, South Dakota, and Wyoming, as well as with the Wakayeja Wape Tokeca Circle of Care program on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The mental health program also has considerable collaborative relationships with system of care projects in Nebraska. Additionally, WICHE is routinely collaborative with the provision of technical assistance through the Children’s Mental Health Technical Assistance Centers at Georgetown University and the Florida Mental Health Institute. Finally, the mental health program has routinely worked with the federal SAMHSA/CMHS Child, Adolescent, and Family Branch and Prevention and Special Populations Branch.
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| The ability for most communities to promote effective treatment and support of children with Serious Emotional Disturbance (SED) and their families is very limited, as is the ability of the many state human service systems to effectively extend and tailor technical assistance, education, training, and evaluation resources to its widely dispersed provider community. Multiple studies have consistently shown the typical one-time conference/workshop didactic training modality is not effective in promoting adoption of new clinical or administrative skills. Key features of the WICHE mental health system of care training are that it is designed and conducted according to adult learning principles—learning is interactive, relevant and practical. |
An analysis of community readiness for change to support the creation of an integrated system of care in Wyoming.
