Understanding Anxiety: New Tools for Providers
Knowing when a young person’s anxiety is typical, and when it is approaching clinical levels, is critical for primary care providers and other professionals who work with children and adolescents.
A new training module, part of a new series of free tools from the Institute on Community Integration and the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain , aims to help professionals better understand and assess childhood anxiety.
The organizations’ TeleOutreach Center created the series as part of the Military Child & Family Collaboratory , formerly the Department of Defense Child Collaboration Study. The project includes 125 teams nationwide working to increase access to behavioral health and developmental resources for rural and military-connected families and providers.
The Anxiety Disorders in Youth module covers risk factors, types of anxiety disorders, and new approaches to screening, assessment, and treatment of a variety of mental, emotional, developmental, and behavioral health challenges in children and adolescents.
“This resource will guide healthcare providers in differentiating children with developmentally appropriate anxiety versus clinical-level anxiety that gets in the way of children’s daily age-appropriate activities,” said Dr. Gail Bernstein, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at MIDB and a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Minnesota. “It will help support professionals working with youth to know when to refer them to mental health professionals for evaluation and intervention.”
Supplemental resources include a downloadable guide for parents and caregivers that covers anxiety disorder types, and a tip sheet covering Do’s and Don’ts for managing youth anxiety that offers steps for reducing avoidance behaviors and gradually exposing youth to feared situations while they engage in effective coping strategies.
Other on-demand modules in the series cover topics including autism assessment, supporting children newly diagnosed with autism, supporting youth with challenging behaviors, and medical issues in child and adolescent behavioral health.
As part of the project for military and rural families, the TeleOutreach team is creating multiple virtual webinars and other events that bring together providers and specialists. The events include a series in rural Minnesota and in North and South Dakota called Project Echo®: Telehealth to Support Families of Children with Behavioral Health and Mental Health Needs .
“TeleOutreach allows researchers to go beyond traditional boundaries for training and for recruiting research participants, opening new doors for inclusion,” said Jessica Simacek, co-director of the TeleOutreach Center. “There is a wide variety of tools we can provide to primary care providers and educators that can connect communities of practice to improve access to care.”