As our reach expands, our aim remains unchanged.
We are excited to announce a significant update to our language from “Urban Pediatrics” to “Universally in Pediatrics”:
Transforming and Expanding Access to Mental Health Care Universally in Pediatrics
Our change in language reflects our broadening focus and vision of scaling the TEAM UP Model™ throughout Massachusetts and nationally. Our overarching goal is to reach as many children and practices as possible to ensure equitable access to care, particularly for structurally marginalized communities.
As our reach expands, our aim remains unchanged:
To promote positive child health and well-being through innovative and consistent delivery of evidence-informed integrated behavioral health care.
The TEAM UP model was developed in the Boston metropolitan area and its surrounding communities. Children and families who live in these communities face many barriers to accessing mental health care. Increasingly, we have come to recognize that the evidence-informed, trauma-responsive, integrated behavioral health care we have shown to work in structurally marginalized metropolitan communities will work in other environments, too. Roadblocks to care are present universally from highly populated areas to rural settings: too few clinicians, mismatch of clinical training with skills needed to function as part of an integrated behavioral health care team, scarce funds, and restrictive billing models that don’t adequately support reimbursement for behavioral health services. The TEAM UP model provides practices with what is needed to overcome these roadblocks and actualize successful behavioral health integration regardless of location.