In an effort to improve access to quality care for all of New Mexico’s residents with mental health and substance use conditions, the New Mexico Behavioral Health Purchasing Collaborative and the New Mexico Higher Education Department (HED), in partnership with the state’s users and providers of services and the state’s institutions of higher education, is creating the New Mexico Consortium for Behavioral Health Training and Research (CBHTR).
 

 
Goals and Objectives
 

The overall purpose of CBHTR is to create a partnership of concerned New Mexico individuals and organizations designed to respond to the unique behavioral healthcare challenges that face our diverse and rural state. CBHTR will work toward these practical objectives:
 

• improvement in access to quality care, especially in underserved rural/frontier and minority populations;

• development of a behavioral health workforce well trained in state of the art, recovery and evidence-based and promising practices;

• development of the state’s capacity to conduct research on behavioral health questions of particular concern to it’s residents;

• enhancement of the state’s capacity to evaluate the services we provide to people with mental and substance use conditions, and

• provision of a vehicle for policy guidance to the state’s leaders, providers, service users and their families.

 

GOAL 1:     To improve the access of New Mexico residents to evidence-based behavioral health care through workforce development, training, and capacity expansion.
 

In regard to the workforce development aspects of Goal 1, CBHTR will

 

●    Support New Mexico Institutions of Higher Education in increasing the numbers of graduates who become well-         trained, culturally competent behavioral healthcare providers in New Mexico.  Fostering this support will:

• Improve the recruitment and retention of behavioral healthcare providers throughout New Mexico who are well-trained in evidence based and promising practices, and who are culturally and linguistically competent to deliver those services to New Mexico residents.

• Increase the number of non-specialty behavioral health care providers (e.g., primary care providers; school personnel; juvenile and adult corrections staff; and others) who are well trained to identify, work with and refer individuals with behavioral health problems.

●    Provide technical assistance and support for the development of telehealth and telemedicine behavioral healthcare systems and other strategies designed to increase capacity to address rural/frontier and racial/ethnic disparities in services delivery

 

●    Support an increase in family and peer-support services and other strategies that build upon the lived experiences of people with mental health and substance use onditions.

 

In regard to the evidence based/promising practices aspects of Goal 1, CBHTR will:

 ●    Provide technical assistance and support to behavioral health provider organizations to prioritize, start-up, and implement new evidence-based and promising practices that are relevant to New Mexico’s diverse and rural populations.

●    Increase opportunities for practicing behavioral healthcare providers in New Mexico to access regular in-service training in the use of evidence-based practice. 
 

●    Support the development and use of a coordinated state telehealth network for ongoing training to multiple sites to improve responsiveness, coordination and implementation of evidence-based and promising practices, including mechanisms to ensure fidelity to science-based models.

 

 

GOAL 2:     To develop behavioral health services research, training and evaluation capacity in New Mexico.
 

To achieve Goal 2, CBHTR’s work will:

 

●    Develop a research agenda that speaks to the needs of New Mexico’s diverse populations, including tribal and pueblo-based services.

 

●    Develop strategies to increase the number of experienced health services and evaluation researchers, with the focus on expanding behavioral healthcare research and evaluation capacity in New Mexico.

 

●    Focus on increasing behavioral healthcare research grant funding and support from multiple sources, including   federal agencies and private sector foundations.

 

●    Support ongoing evaluation of the effects of training in and adoption of evidence-based practices on the quality and cost-effectiveness of behavioral health care for New Mexico.

           

●    Provide coordination for the behavioral health service and evaluation research efforts of state agencies, academic researchers in New Mexico, and national researchers from private foundations, research centers and universities outside New Mexico who are interested in the impact of the New Mexico Behavioral Health system restructuring.

 

 

GOAL 3:     To provide a vehicle for translating science into policy and to support policy makers and leaders in improving services, training, and research in support of New Mexico’s residents.

 

To achieve Goal 3 CBHTR will:

 

●    Create communication mechanisms to ensure that the findings of research and evaluation inform both the training and education of the workforce, as well as the policy and leadership of the state to sustain improvement in services over time

 

●    Provide a host environment for leadership development for consumers of services, people in recovery, and their families to assume full partnership in policy making, planning, evaluation, research and delivery of services.

 

 

CBHTR’s Organization

 

CBHTR will take the form of a consortium or a “virtual” institute that is based outside of any one particular state agency or university, and that represents the best interests of all stakeholders concerned about the quality of behavioral healthcare in New Mexico

 

The Consortium will be managed by an Executive Council appointed by the Co-Chairs of the Behavioral Health Purchasing Collaborative and the Secretary of the Higher Education Department.  The CEO of the Behavioral Health Collaborative and the Deputy Secretary for Academic Affairs Planning and Research of the Higher Education Department will serve as Co-Chairs of the Consortium.  The Executive Council will be supported by a New Mexico Advisory Council of Stakeholders, and a National Expert Advisory Council.

 

Initially, CBHTR will include one core focused on Behavioral Healthcare Capacity Development and one on Behavioral Healthcare Research and Evaluation.  Funding for CBHTR will be developed from a wide variety of sources, including federal and foundation grants as well as state and university partnerships; initial funding comes from the state’s behavioral health transformation grant

 

Contact Us: ( ** - primary contact)

**Lucille Gora	Program Manager	505.272.5062	lgora@salud.unm.edu
Richard Hough	Research Professor	505.272.6238	RLHough@aol.com
Steven Adelsheim, MD	Child Psychiatrist	505.272.0770	sadelsheim@salud.unm.edu