Presenters
- Monica Guggenberger, MS, LMFT, Integrated Behavioral Health psychotherapist, CentraCare, Saint Cloud, MN
- Barbara Skodje-Mack, MS, LMFT, Integrated Behavioral Health psychotherapist, CentraCare, Saint Cloud, MN
Summary
The Central MN Child Advocacy Center (CAC) provides a multi-disciplinary team (MDT) approach that gives children and their families a single, child-friendly, coordinated response after the disclosure of sexual or physical abuse. According to a national survey of Child Advocacy Center directors (Huey & Medford, 2015), the majority of cases were referred for behavioral health services. However, only about 30% of CACs provide behavioral health services in-house, and 65% of directors felt there was not adequate access to behavioral health services. The Central MN CAC recently partnered with Integrated Behavioral Health (IBH) to provide mental health services immediately following a forensic interview to the patient and their non-offending loved ones. In 2019, the Central MN CAC served 324 children. Since IBH began partnering with the Central MN CAC in August 2019, 56 patients elected to participate in IBH services right at the CAC. The purpose of this poster is to evaluate the need of mental health services within CACs and how our IBH program offers a unique model to provide immediate behavioral health care to those who are seen at the Central MN CAC. Our IBH/CAC partnership has been able to offer behavioral health screenings, immediate access to psychotherapy, and more significant collaboration with all members of the MDT. The goal of our partnership with the Central MN CAC is to provide high quality, holistic care to those who enter the CAC and help foster healing from the trauma children and their non-offending loved ones have experienced.
Objectives
- Identify key benefits of offering immediate mental health services in a CAC setting.
- Describe how IBH can be integrated within a CAC.
- Identify the importance of supporting non-offending caregivers as part of the healing process for the patient.
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