Texas Tech and UMC Establish Children’s Behavioral Health Clinic

Partnership increases access to mental health care

The Children's Behavioral Health Clinic joins the University Medical Center (UMC) as a partnership between UMC and Texas Tech's Couple, Marriage, and Family Therapy program and the Department of Psychological Sciences.

Beginning Aug 1 pediatric patients, couples, and their families can receive therapy on the UMC Lubbock campus. The clinic will also offer teletherapy in the coming months as a way to better serve the region's rural communities. Specifically designed for pediatric patients and their families, the clinic will provide expert mental and social health services for the Level I Trauma Center hospital.

Beyond patient-family services, the clinic will facilitate graduate student learning to develop graduate-level clinicians. Community members will have the opportunity to provide honest feedback through the implementation of community-based participatory research (CBPR). CBPR data will be used to improve services and training efforts with the hope of becoming a model program across the nation.

Director of the Family Therapy Clinic at Texas Tech and Associate Professor of Practice, Nicole Piland, Ph.D., LMFT, says that the idea for the clinic came from UMC's Pediatric Trauma and Burn Services department needing a way screen and treat pediatric trauma patients in an effort to prevent or reduce the development of post-traumatic stress disorder.

"The hospital-based and clinic-based services will serve to support families through the recovery process in the same location as their medical provider," Dr. Piland said. "The teletherapy will allow access to services for families living outside of Lubbock county or in areas where mental health services are not available."

Currently, clinic treatments include in-room treatments for patients and their families as well as outpatient services located in the UMC Medical Office Plaza I, suite 250.

• Services provided at The Children's Behavioral Health Clinic:
  • Psychoeducation related to medical trauma
  • Trauma-related assessment
  • Support Groups
  • Coping with acute and chronic medical issues
  • Management of depression and/or anxiety
  • Dealing with physical and emotional trauma
  • Family violence, grief, loss, and more

Assistant Professor for Couple, Marriage and Family Therapy, Cameron C. Brown, Ph.D., says that the flexibility of inpatient, outpatient, and the upcoming telecounseling services will set patients up for long-term success in their recovery journey.

"With UMC's patients coming from all corners of Texas, New Mexico, and other bordering states, many of which travel several hours, it is important that we ensure that our services are accessible to them," Dr. Brown said. "These teletherapy services will ensure that they can continue to receive mental and behavioral health treatment without traveling several hours back to UMC."

Telecounseling is set to begin in early 2020.

"This specific service will offer even more flexibility to the patient and family receiving treatment as they will be able to use video capabilities to meet with one of our clinicians after medical discharge from the hospital," Dr. Brown said.

Dr. Brown explains that there is growing evidence in the world of academia illustrating the importance of attending to the physical, social, and mental dimensions of a patient's overall health and wellbeing.

"This research suggests that these three facets of a patient are interdependent on one another in that as one is improved there is a higher likelihood that the other two dimensions will also improve," he said. "Both in-room hospital services and clinic-based services will serve to support families through the recovery process in the same location as their medical provider. Research has indicated that this integrated approach has several benefits to the patient and family as well as the hospital and medical professionals."

Moving forward, research will play an integral role in the evaluation of services to ensure that the clinic is regularly improving and sharing its innovative approaches with professionals around the country.