Improving Mental, Emotional, Developmental, and Behavioral (MEDB) Health Care for Military-Connected and Rural Children and Families

Researchers and clinical specialists from the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Community Integration (ICI) and the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain (MIDB) are finding new ways to help military-connected families and people living in rural communities get access to services for mental, emotional, developmental, and behavioral (MEDB) health care for children.

People are invited to hear and discuss the latest findings from the Military Child and Family Collaboration study at an event on Friday, Sept. 11, hosted by the MIDB, the College of Education and Human Development, the Medical School , and ICI. The event at the McNamara Alumni Center in Minneapolis includes presentations by policy advocates and leaders who will discuss the study's findings and highlight recommendations to break down barriers to care.

Jessica Simacek (pictured at left) is the study's principal investigator, director of the TeleOutreach Center, and co-director of the TeleOutreach Research Service Hub. She says the study has three focus areas of care. “The first area is focused on improving provider capacity to help families access pediatric mental, emotional, developmental, and behavioral health care,” Simacek said. “The second area is to develop and deploy telehealth models and digital tools to help accelerate access to high-quality care. Our third aim is to use data to really ground the care and to help us better understand the challenges these families have and what may work better.”

Research has found that early, individualized, non-fragmented care is crucial for children who have MEDB needs. This study aims to advance knowledge, capacity, and innovation to improve access to and quality of care for children, particularly those in special populations. In the Upper Midwest, military-connected children are likely to reside in rural or geographically dispersed locations.

“How to best reach children in these areas and deliver timely care to them is an area where we can all improve,” Simacek said. “Families regularly wait months to years and may need to travel long distances or relocate to access the specialized care their children need. For example, when you’re a military family, you are often moving locations and needing to set up new care systems, and that can be difficult.”

“One of the models the study uses to address this issue and improve access to specialized care is Project Extension for Community Health Outcomes (Project ECHO), a telehealth and tele-mentoring series for practitioners working with military families, highly mobile families, and people living in rural areas. This ‘hub and spoke’ model brings together specialists such as child and adolescent psychiatrists, developmental and behavioral pediatricians, social workers, and autism and neurodevelopmental specialists. This is what we call our ‘hub team,’ and they are available for providers who serve these families to access specialized knowledge and support. It cuts down on wait times for appointments and helps to break down barriers to care.”

Simacek says there are two main goals for the Sept. 11 event. “The first is we want to leave the event with actionable recommendations on how to better support military-connected and rural children and families,” Simacek explained. “The second goal is to really share the work that’s going on at the University of Minnesota. We’re doing a lot to support these populations, and we want to help with a bi-directional exchange of information between researchers and the families who are in need of services.”

If you’re interested in attending the Sept. 11 event, please register by Sept. 4.