Research > STEPS > Clinic Systems Project
Clinic Systems Project
A program of the Network on Youth Mental Health, funded by the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Network director: Dr. John R. Weisz
Project Description
The Clinic Systems Project is a descriptive study of a sample of large
community mental health clinics serving a representative sample of counties
in the U.S. About 200 clinics are participating. In each clinic, two primary
measurement methods will be used to assess service system and service provider
organization characteristics pertinent to the adoption and implementation
of evidence-based practices. At the service system level, semi-structured
interviews will be conducted with directors of the clinics to assess their
perspectives on regulations, policies, governance structures within and
across pertinent service sectors, and financing structures and mechanisms
that influence child mental health treatment in their clinics. As a second
approach, within each of the 276 clinic organizations, clinicians who treat
children will complete a battery of validated measures. The measures are
used to assess organizational constructs known to be associated with service
quality and outcomes in other human services sectors (i.e., child welfare,
substance abuse, health).
The data collected will enable us to characterize the performance of mental
health clinics in organizational domains shown to influence service quality
and outcomes and known to support innovation in other disciplines and industries.
We will then examine the extent to which mental health clinic performance
in these organizational domains varies as a function of system and financing
variables. First, the System Project data will inform the development of
system, financing, and provider organization criteria to be used in establishing
minimum eligibility criteria for systems and clinics to participate future
phases of the project. Second, the system and organization level data in
conjunction with data derived from clinicians in the Clinic Treatment Project
will be used to specify system, organizational and clinician-level interventions
and supports that will be needed to facilitate effective larger-scale deployment
of evidence-based procedures.
Project Goal
The Clinic Systems Project will examine components of mental health service systems that are expected to impact the adoption, implementation, and effectiveness of evidence-based practices in community clinics. These components include: (1) governance structures within and across service sectors (e.g., mental health, child welfare, juvenile justice, education, health) and the formal and informal linkages between these structures; (2) service financing structures and reimbursement mechanisms; and (3) service provider organizations (in this project, mental health clinics).