FY 2024 behavioral health service expansion - history of school health clinics of santa clara county: since 1986, school health clinics of santa clara county (SHC) has provided easily accessible,…

FY 2024 behavioral health service expansion - history of school health clinics of santa clara county: since 1986, school health clinics of santa clara county (SHC) has provided easily accessible, quality health care to low-income children and adults at five school-based clinic sites in santa clara county, california. All clinics are pcmh recognized by the ncqa, with spanish-speaking staff who provide comprehensive primary and preventive health care, along with chronic disease management, enrollment services, and specialty care navigation. In 2020, SHC deployed fully integrated behavioral health (BH) care and care coordination. Today, all patients ages 6+ years are screened for BH and sdoh concerns at each clinic visit. Population served: SHC serves a population that is 77.5% hispanic/latino. 67.2% of patients fall below 100% of poverty level. For patients 0-17 years old, 89.2% of patients are covered by medicaid programs in california. Need/project summary: hrsa bhse funding will enable SHC to build the capacity of its existing behavioral health program to meet the increased demand for services that SHC is currently experiencing and expand services to include care for SUD, including moud. SHC's current BH team consists of 2.5 FTE providers who provided BH care to 1150 patients ages 6+ with mild to moderate mental health needs and substance use diagnoses in 2023. To address the BH needs of children ages 0-5, SHC is currently in the process of implementing a dyadic care model for families with young children, which will improve its ability to identify families who are impacted by mental health issues. Additionally, in the last six months, the HMO owned and operated by the santa clara county (valley health plan) began referring its patients needing BH care to SHC, resulting in a significant increase in demand for services. As a result, SHC currently sees an additional 50+ patients per month compared to 2023. We expect this referral process to increase demand by 40%. Finally, although SHC has at times had x-waivered providers and in-house BH providers trained in providing SUD care, very few patients required services as SHC is largely school-based. SHC intends to increase services through the new referral channels and focus on preventing SUD through education given to patients and the broader community. The project will increase the number of patients receiving BH services by enabling SHC to hire additional BH providers to meet the increased service demand. The project will increase the number of patients receiving SUD services, including patients receiving treatment with moud, by enabling SHC to provide SUD/moud training to existing SHC BH providers and training to all SHC providers about stigma related to SUD. As a result, SHC will be able to identify patients struggling with SUD and provide care in-house via providers our patients know and trust.