Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium Programs
at Dell Medical School
Dell Medical School (Dell Med) is one of 12 health-related institutions (HRI) in the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium (TCMHCC). The consortium leverages the expertise and resources of the institutions to address urgent child and adolescent mental health challenges and improve the Texas mental health care system.
The Child and Perinatal Psychiatry Access Network (CPAN/PeriPAN) offers primary care and perinatal care providers assistance with behavioral health care for their patients. CPAN/PeriPAN’s hotline, 888-901-2726, connects clinicians to mental health professionals ready to assist them.
Learn more about all of CPAN/PeriPAN’s initiatives at the program’s website:
Click to read the transcript for “CPAN at Dell Medical School”:
Mental health is a time-sensitive issue, and the longer that a child spends either in crisis or in a negative environment, the harder it is, uh, to recover. When a family reaches out, we need to be able to move quickly and get them what they need. CPAN is the Child Psychiatry Access Network, a program that essentially is a hotline for PCPs.
We are able to provide a resource for those primary care providers to advise them, support them in any way they need around the mental health of the kids that they’re seeing. The biggest benefit I have is being able to speak on the phone to a psychiatrist about my patients. The process for A PCP is they dial our number, a call agent from our team will take down their information, take down some of the information about the nature of the call, and then the PCP would just wait for about 30 minutes for a callback from us.
We are fully state funded, so it does not cost the PCPs anything. Um, it is completely free to engage in our program. As a professional, I feel like I benefit a great deal because I’m not only learning as the psychiatrist or are helping us with these complicated cases, but also able to help my patient.
That’s my job. They have a huge amount on their plates and I think having that person that they can use as support or that person that they can lean on as support, um, is really, really helpful.
Click to read the transcript for “Reproductive Psychiatry Consults for Clinicians”:
Mental health conditions are the leading underlying cause of pregnancy related deaths, and these conditions are treatable. The truth is that women who get treatment can and do recover. That’s why Texas PeriPAN is here for you. Texas now has a real time, evidence based program to help you meet the standard of care your patients need and deserve through clinician to clinician consultation, continuing education, vetted referrals, and resources for clinicians and patients.
We want to help you build your capacity so you feel more confident treating mental and behavioral health conditions. The Perinatal Psychiatry Access Network is state funded. Does not cost you or your patients anything. Fits into your day and is easy to use. If this sounds like something that would be helpful to you, it’s because it’s built by and for clinicians like you.
Texas PeriPAN offers real time evidence driven clinician to clinician consultation services for doctors, psychologists, nurses, midwives, medical residents and other health care professionals. I had a patient who I needed to make a switch in their mental health plan, and I just needed to get on the phone with a reproductive psychiatrist, and it was just a joy to be able to call my local PeriPAN hub, get a phone call back from a psychiatrist within 15 minutes, and get my questions answered.
And I collaborated with that psychiatrist, for the betterment of my patient. It was just easy to use and so accessible. Mental health distress is one of the most common things that any of us will experience in our lifetime, and it is the number one most common complication of pregnancy. You can call PeriPAN for support to increase your capacity so that we are screening sooner, so that we are delivering that care as soon as possible for women.
Our team of reproductive mental health experts is here for you in real time right now. Anyone from your office can call to enroll. You can even sign up multiple clinicians at once and it only takes a few minutes. Once enrolled, you can just call or text to begin a consultation. Our team will contact you in five minutes or less, and you can talk to a psychiatrist within 30 minutes, or text us at a time to call you back.
PeriPAN offers free schemes on a range of maternal mental health topics, many requested by clinicians like you. PeriPAN also offers you individualized referrals and resources within one business day. We save your office time by finding and vetting resources and referrals based on your patient’s insurance location and other needs. So let us do the legwork. No call is too small and call as often as you like, whether for the same patient or many.
The perinatal period is pivotal for mental health. It can be a time of immense joy or a time of great stress. Maternal anxiety and depression are very common complications of childbirth and good mental health for mothers is foundational to the mental health of their children and families. Together, we can work to help the nearly 50,000 Texas mothers who experience depression after giving birth each year, and the 1 in 5 postpartum women experiencing any type of mental health condition.
With PeriPAN, you’ll feel more confident and get the support you need to meet the standard of care your patients need and deserve. Call us or visit our website to learn more and start using PeriPAN.
Additional CPAN/PeriPAN initiatives:
CPAN Direct and PeriPAN Direct
CPAN and PeriPAN now offer free, one-time consultations with a CPAN psychiatrist or a PeriPAN reproductive psychiatrist to help providers better understand their patients’ mental health needs and support them as they provide psychiatric care.
CPAN/PeriPAN can help determine if this is a good option for your patient.
Learn more about CPAN Direct here
Learn more about PeriPAN Direct here
CPAN SAFETY-A
The Safe Alternatives for Teens and Youths-Acute program, or SAFETY-A, educates primary care providers about crisis intervention and safety planning strategies to use with child and adolescent patients who exhibit suicidal thoughts or behaviors.
This service is only available to primary care physicians.
Learn more about SAFETY-A here
Project ECHO
Primary care providers are on the front lines of treating youth mental health conditions because of Texas’ shortage of child and adolescent psychiatrists. Project ECHO is there to help them by offering continuing medical education opportunities in a virtual setting. Child and adolescent medical providers can participate, and topics include:
• Recognizing and diagnosing mental health conditions.
• Providing care for children and adolescents with mild to moderate mental health disorders.
Both CPAN and PeriPAN offer Project ECHO series.
Learn more about Project ECHO here
CPAN/PeriPAN does not provide emergency care; if a patient is in crisis please call 988.
Texas Child Health Access Through Telemedicine (TCHATT) is a telehealth program that enables school districts to identify and assess students’ behavioral health needs and provide them access to mental health services. We also offer opportunities for additional sessions when clinically appropriate.
Learn more about all of TCHATT’s initiatives at the program’s website:
Click to read the transcript for “Welcome to TCHATT” in English:
I think it’s easy for adults that we look at pressures that students are on and we sort of see it through our lens of when we were students, and not realizing that how much has changed and what students are dealing with and the pressures they’re feeling.
Having the TCHATT program there as a support.
I feel they are a support system that works shoulder-to-shoulder.
School districts can’t do this work alone, we need experts that are outside of us to really come together and so that’s the first thing I see is it’s this amazing partnership.
TCHATT stands for Texas Child Health Access through Telemedicine.
Our job is to help support schools in identifying and supporting mental health needs for children.
Some of the biggest challenges I see that we struggle with of how we provide mental health care to our students is a lot of access within the community.
Time is so important for us that they get immediate service so they can start getting the help that they need.
It’s a program that allows the school district to connect students with um professional psychiatrists or therapists so students can receive the help that they need.
It is a program that is free to school districts, there’s no cost, equipment is provided, there is funding available if school districts do not have the funding.
It’s all televideo, you know, that we can have quicker access and more accessibility through video opposed to a family having to go take their students somewhere.
The fact that it happens during the school day, that they can meet with a mental health professional, psychologist, psychiatrist at school is probably the most critical thing for our students, um, to remove every barrier for them to get this assistance they need.
The TCHATT program serves a variety of emotional distress and what we tell schools is that it’s anything that you find concerning, from anxiety about school, about learning, to loss, depression, also symptoms of trauma.
Being able to talk it through with another professional about your concerns because in the school setting we can only do so much and we really need that support and help.
It breaks your heart when you see that they’re struggling, um, and when you see that progress, it just makes you have hope and fills you with happiness that you know, we’re going to continue to see that progress with that student.
All of our students we want to be successful, right?
And so we’re always supporting them in ways that can they can be the best that they can be.
Without the help of course, TCHATT.
I feel delighted when I do see students become who they can become.
When we see students that actually can get the help that they need for whatever mental health concern it is, um, that’s why we’re here.
Click to read the transcript for “Welcome to TCHATT” en Español:
Los estudios están más difícil. Hay más tarea más que aprender y a veces esa presión lo siente los estudiantes. El programa teach es una manera para apoyar esas áreas limitantes que, como distritos, tenemos. Para que nuestros estudiantes puedan alcanzar esas metas y logros en su futuro.
Chi chat por sus glas en inglés, eh, significa acceso a la salud infantil en tejas a través de la tele. Y es un programa que se enfoque en brindar acceso a la terapia en este modo virtual para asegurarnos de eliminar cualquier obstáculo que pueda prevenir a familias. No hay suficientes terapistas en en las comunidades.
Y para agarrar una primer cita, tienes que estar en una lista de espera. O no hablan el idioma de los padres, que también es una de los retos que enfrentan, o muchas veces los padres, por razones de trabajo por razones de transporte, no pueden llevar al estudiante al programa a recibir los servicios que ellos necesitan.
Especialmente aquí en nuestra comunidad. Esto nos ayuda para que los niños reciban ese apoyo de inmediato cuando es directamente en la escuela, es algo accesible y puede el estudiante beneficiarse de ese gran programa que apoya en la área que el estudiante necesite ese apoyo. Una cosa que es muy importante es que tia es un programa que es gratis, es gratis y es algo que es.
Privado. Nuestro programa se enfoca en meditar. Apoyo en una variedad de dificultades en salud mental desde un diagnóstico de ansiedad, dificultades si ha habido un duelo o existe alguna pérdida, al igual que si hay algún trauma reciente o ya pasado, pueden ser sesiones ceap peas o también evalu las. De psicólogos o psiquiatras.
Para mí ha sido un gran apoyo porque muchas veces necesitamos más del conocimiento que yo tengo. Y eso es lo que pruebe t. Para mí allí nuestros consejeros se puede apoyar también y consultar si tienen preguntas, no son solamente para la familia o los estudiantes, pero me dio nada a mi. Para poder saber qué es lo que puedo hacer para ayudar a este estudiante que el niño está en crisis.
Pues duele saber tan, tan jovencitos y sintiéndose como aislados o solos o con miedo. Una luna debe estar riéndose. Debe estar gozando. Cuando veo a un estudiante que ha recibido la ayuda que necesita. Es como un regalo para mí, para mi corazón, ver ese gran cambio es el mejor regalo. Se puede decir de la satisfacción que pudistes ayudar a un joven.
Nosotros podemos ayudar a los estudiantes con su desarrollo académico. Con su desarrollo con el comportamiento, pero nos faltaba un factor y ese factor era la salud mental y a base del recurso que nos pruebe t. Shot, ahora lo tenemos y podemos ayudar al estudiante de todas maneras, es un recurso único.
TCHATT does not provide crisis services; please call 911 for emergency support.
Youth Aware of Mental Health (YAM)
YAM uses an evidence-based, interactive curriculum designed to increase young people’s awareness and understanding of mental health. The five-session program for 8th-12th graders teaches them about suicide prevention, problem-solving and emotional intelligence through lectures, discussion and role-playing.
Learn more about YAM by visiting the program’s website:
YAM does not provide crisis services; please call 911 for emergency support.