Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) Project
A research team from VTIPG and VT’s Center for Public Health Practice and Research (College of Veterinary Medicine) has continued to provide ongoing data management and outcomes and process evaluation services for the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) project for New River Valley Health Services (NRVCS) this fall. The CCBHC project targets adults with serious mental illness, serious substance abuse disorders or co-occurring disorders and children with serious emotional disturbance. Specifically, the project seeks to expand capacity and provide more comprehensive care to the population of NRVCS adults and youth who are medically under-or-uninsured.
Funded by the Substance Abuse Mental Health Service Agency (SAMHSA), NRVCS’ two-year grant was awarded in fall 2018. During the course of the grant, the VT research team has assisted NRVCS in collecting data and processing more than 4,000 surveys concerning nearly 1,500 individuals receiving expanded services funded by the grant. The team has delivered to annual reports and is now working on a final report summarizing NRVCS grant activity, compliance rates and outcome data for the grant cycle.
NRVCS was awarded a second SAMHSA grant in May, 2020, which enabled expansion of telehealth services that have been particularly needed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Service delivery and data collection for that initiative commenced June 1. NRVCS requested that the VTIPG research team remain as external evaluators for the new effort. As a result, VTIPG provided data collection assistance and evaluation services for both grants throughout the recent summer months.
In addition to NRVCS’ two SAMSHA grants, Mount Rogers Community Services (MRCS) located in Wytheville, VA contacted approached VTIPG to serve as external evaluators for its recently launched Community Behavioral health Clinic program. Part of the work on this grant has included traveling to the Community Services program office to provide capacity building for its staff, as well as training for new staff in the form of training videos. The study team is also working to develop strategies for expansion of the MRCS CCBHC model with a goal of reaching a total of 3,500 individuals during the 2-year grant period.
The Research Team
Serving as the CCBHC projects’ Principal Investigator, VTIPG Associate Director, Mary Beth Dunkenberger will continue directing the data management and outcomes evaluation efforts for all three grants. She is joined by Co-PI , Sophie Wenzel, associate director of the CPHPR who is spearheading the process evaluation element of this work. Other members of the research team include VTIPG Research Associate, Liz Allen, who manages data collection and processing team members, who are profiled below.
The Research Team's Data Collection and Processing Group
The data group, with support from graduate assistants Katie Hanton (VTIPG), Laura York (VTIPG/CPHPR), Farhanaz Sharmin (VTIPG), and Rabita Banee (VTIPG) recently completed second year annual reports for the NRVCS’ advisory board that outlined progress to date. VTIPG Senior Research Associate David Moore has also been assisting with this project in the form of creating Access databases to help track data more efficiently.
More on Our Group
Katie Hanton is a Graduate Research Assistant with VTIPG studying for her Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning. Katie assists with data collection and entering that information into the group’s data management tool.
Laura York, Graduate Research Assistant with VTIPG and the Center for Public Health Practice & Research, is studying to obtain her Master’s in Public Health concentrating in Public Health Education. Laura assists with entering weekly National Outcomes Measures (NOMS) into the SAMSHA Performance Accountability and Reporting System (SPARS) as well as process evaluation measures for the New River Valley Community Services and Mount Rogers Community Services sites.
Rabita Banee, Graduate Research Assistant with VTIPG, currently works with the SAMHSA-CCBHC data group. Her responsibilities include entering data of NOMS into SPARS, updating weekly data collection Reassessment Lists and assisting with addressing any data management- related issues. Rabita is also supporting the development of agency training materials.
Farhanaz Sharmin is currently a PhD student in Agricultural and Applied Economics (AAEC). Her areas of interest are Development and Applied Behavioral Economics. In her current role as a Graduate Research Assistant at VTIPG, she is assisting with data management and analysis and designing efforts to improve the data collection process. Her goal in coming months is to evaluate the effectiveness of behavioral and mental health services provided by New River Valley Community Services (NRVCS) and the validity of self-reported data concerning illegal substance use.