Person-Centered Intake in Oregon Community Behavioral Health
Association of Oregon Community Mental Health Programs
SYSTEM TRANSFORMATION
The Need | The process for getting people started with services in community behavioral health has many rules and requirements. Even though regulations are intended to promote quality, paradoxically, they also create administrative burden and interfere with providing flexible, trauma-informed, and evidence-based care.
The Association of Oregon Community Mental Health Programs partnered with the Oregon Health Authority to develop an Oregon version of the New Mexico Treat First program. This project was initially supported by a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Delta Center for a Thriving Safety Net grant, along with funding from the Oregon Health Authority.
The Approach | Ariel served as the Rapid Engagement Project Director from 2021-2024. This role included:
Facilitating a multi-stakeholder planning process to design the Rapid Engagement pilot
Conducting policy research and advocacy to change relevant administrative rules
Facilitating the implementation pilot with 6 community behavioral health provider organizations and 4 Medicaid payers
Partnering with University of Oregon Prevention Science Institute to co-design and conduct program evaluation
The Outcomes | The Rapid Engagement pilot generated significant momentum for changing the state administrative rules regulating the intake process in community mental health settings. We explored feasibility and learned a lot about the benefits and operational challenges of redesigning intake. We showed that given flexibility, the community behavioral health system is enthusiastic about innovation and improvement to getting people started with care.
The Learnings | Person-centered intake is both valuable and feasible in community behavioral health. It will not, however, solve all of the problems with access to services. We will need a variety of linked solutions to address the challenges involved with getting people into treatment. Nonetheless, creating more flexibility at the first points of contact is an important and common sense way to do a better job of helping people. If we can focus less on meeting requirements, we can focus more on:
Meeting people where they are
Providing empathic, evidence-based support
Offering trauma-informed and culturally responsive care
Understanding and responding to their priorities and immediate needs
