The federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) recently awarded the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) a Pediatric Mental Health Care Access Grant to increase the integration of telehealth resources into pediatric care. The SAFES project will create a crisis care consultation service for northeastern Washington through a partnership between DOH, Seattle Children’s, and Frontier Behavioral Health.
The award of $445,000 per year for five years will build on the existing Partnership Access Line (PAL) and Behavioral Health Crisis Care Clinic at Seattle Children’s. PAL provides mental health consultation to pediatric primary care providers (PCPs) statewide. This project will provide additional outreach to the pediatric primary care providers in the 10 counties in the Better Health Together and North Central Accountable Communities of Health (see map of regions served), in part to increase their use of PAL. Seattle Children’s will train and support a crisis care team at Frontier Behavioral Health in Spokane based on the Crisis Care Consultation Clinic model at Seattle Children’s. This team will provide a combination of in-person and telehealth crisis support services to clients in the region with suicidality crises and inadequate current supports. PAL will be used to triage referrals from PCPs that are appropriate to refer to the Frontier Crisis Care Team.
DOH’s Children & Youth with Special Health Care Needs, Adolescent Health, and COVID Behavioral Health teams will coordinate this work as part of our ongoing efforts to improve child and adolescent health and address the mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. This funding is part of the American Rescue Plan Act. For more information, please contact Monica Burke at monica.burke@doh.wa.gov.