Dr. Sonja Frison (he Center for Youth, Family and Community Partnerships) received funding from NCDHHS Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse Services for the project “The North Carolina Tiered Care Coordination Pilot Project, 2020-2021.” Dr. Jeremy Bray, Dr. Christine Murray, and Dr. Stephen Sills are co-principal investigators on the project.
In FY16, North Carolina LME-MCOs served an estimated 1.1 M Medicaid and uninsured children and youth. That year concerns about a lack of coordination across child-serving systems resulting in insufficient assessment of behavioral health needs, slow delivery of services, and an impenetrable public behavioral health system were highlighted by the Governor’s Taskforce on Mental Health/Substance Use.
As a result of those concerns, the Governor’s Taskforce recommended that a child case management pilot (now tiered care coordination) project be implemented to test evidence-informed strategies for addressing those identified concerns. The child tiered care coordination pilot project has been established and services began July, 2017. This pilot connects two at-risk populations to behavioral health services: youth and families involved in child welfare and juvenile justice. Both populations have high rates of exposure to trauma and complex behavioral health needs. Assessing, treating, and coordinating their behavioral health and life domain needs can assist social services in maintaining or reunifying youth with their families and can assist juvenile justice in keeping youth from moving deeper into the justice system. UNCG provides management level staff to the project, High Fidelity Wraparound Implementation Team, as well as support for the evaluation of effectiveness of this pilot project.
