Building capacity in child welfare to screen for mental health challenges: Lessons learned

Background: Children involved in child welfare services are at high risk for emotional and behavioral problems that are not adequately identified and treated. As part of a federal review, Youth and Family Services (YFS), child protective services in Charlotte, North Carolina, was informed that they must improve their response to youth needs, particularly regarding mental health, or face losing millions of dollars in federal funding.

Objectives: We have described herein an effort to build agency capacity for identifying mental health needs through a community–university partnership and share lessons learned about implementing the new process.

Methods: Community and university partners came together to develop a mental health screening pilot for one Youth and Family Services (YFS) district.

Lessons Learned: Community–university partners across all levels of a hierarchically structured agency must work together to align implementation of partner activities with system-level goals. Recommendations for collaboration, from a stakeholder perspective, are also described.