On May 25, Children’s Hospital Colorado pleaded with state lawmakers to fund residential mental healthcare as it was experiencing a state of emergency in pediatric mental health (CBS4). And, in the last two years, the hospital has seen a 90 percent increase in demand for behavioral health treatment (Children’s Hospital). Across the state, 49 out of 64 counties do not have a child and adolescent psychiatrist.

To help address the need for pediatric mental health services, the Colorado Pediatric Psychiatry Consultation & Access Program (CoPPCAP) and ECHO Colorado are offering Pediatric Psychiatry in Primary Care: Core Essentials and Pediatric Psychiatry in Primary Care: Beyond Core Essentials – two upcoming learning series designed to give providers the knowledge and skills to assess and treat pediatric mental/behavioral health conditions.

“One aim of the series is to address the enormous burden that pediatric PCPs are experiencing during the COVID pandemic and children’s mental health crisis,” said Susan E. Young, PhD, Evaluation Lead at CoPPCAP and associate professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at University of Colorado School of Medicine. “For this reason, each session includes a self-care component that serves as a “check in” on the level of stress providers are experiencing, and allows participants to share strategies for coping and support.”

Core Essentials consists of eight sessions on assessment and treatment fundamentals that will assist providers with minimal experience and comfort managing mental health concerns in their pediatric patients. Beyond Core Essentials is a more advanced series designed to offer greater depth in the areas of differential diagnosis, psychiatric medication management, and two of the most pressing mental health crises in Colorado: youth suicide and substance abuse. 

Core Essentials and Beyond Core Essentials run September 30 through November 18. For more information and to register for these free series visit echocolorado.org/find-an-echo/.

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Past the Pandemic: Mental Well-being for You and Your Patients To Be Offered For the Fifth Time Since Start of Pandemic

Past the Pandemic: Mental Well-being for You and Your Patients (PTP) is a free, six-week ECHO Colorado learning series designed to teach health care providers and other staff working in health care settings strategies to navigate, normalize and hold space for worries and experiences during this pandemic. Held on Tuesdays from 12:00 to 1:00 PM MT and running June 29 – August 3, each session provides helpful, tangible tools in a psychoeducational, didactic format. By understanding stress along a continuum, participants learn how to manage stress and loss, increase capacity to prevent burnout, elevate connectedness and mindfulness, and promote quality patient care.

PTP started in July 2020 and 341 health care workers have attended the first four series. It was developed in partnership with University of Colorado Department of Psychiatry as one of many offerings and resources the department offered to address the mental health of health care workers during the pandemic.

“We developed the Past the Pandemic ECHO series in response to the COVID-19 crisis as a way of integrating more support for health care workers during a difficult time,” said Mandy Doria, MS, LPC, NCC, RYT-200, Student/Resident Mental Health Triage Counselor and Wellness & Outreach Coordinator, Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. “We felt that offering time for connection, psychoeducation, and skills-based learning would be most effective to address the potential burnout, stress, and trauma experienced by those on the front lines as well as those working in health care settings.”

Participants found the series to be incredibly valuable, best summed up by this quote from one participant: “This series helped me recognize that we aren’t alone in this challenge and it provided useful resources to recognize when we are needing help or to make small changes to get through the challenges.”

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