Center for Evidence to Practice working to improve behavioral health

The Louisiana Department of Health’s Office of Behavioral Health and the LSU Health New Orleans School of Public Health are proud to say the Center for Evidence to Practice is up and running.

Now, you’re probably wondering — what is the Center for Evidence to Practice? This initiative serves Louisiana as a hub for training and implementation of best practices for behavioral health services for children, youth and families.

Behavioral health evidence-based practices are therapies that have undergone the multiple, rigorous, randomized controls vital to determine whether a practice has proven to be effective. While many behavioral health therapies exist, only a handful are considered best practices. Evidence-based practices in behavioral health are a nationally-recognized strategy to seeing improved outcomes, and it’s something that’s been gaining steam in Louisiana.

Resources at your fingertips

One of the biggest achievements of the Center’s launch is its website, laevidencetopractice.com. If you’re a parent seeking help for your child, a behavioral health service provider or any other kind of stakeholder in behavioral health, you will want to check out this website.

There’s a statewide map that shows where to find specialized, trained providers certified in evidence-based practices and providers currently working toward certification. This map is continually being updated, so if you find inaccurate information, just use the “Contact Us” function on the website to report it so that it can be corrected.

Another feature is a calendar listing events and trainings for behavioral health providers, sponsored by the Center and by other partners such as state agencies and managed care organizations. Many of these trainings are free of cost to providers who serve Medicaid-eligible youth.

You also will have the option to sign up for the Center’s newsletter, Behavioral Health Buzz, which includes monthly updates on evidence-based practice trainings and implementation.

Coming soon is E2P Learn, an online e-learning platform for behavioral health provider agencies, practitioners and other stakeholders. This platform will use videos and webinars to provide comprehensive support for the implementation and sustainability of evidence-based practices in Louisiana.

Find behavioral health providers certified in evidence-based practices using a map available
on the Center for Evidence to Practice website, laevidencetopractice.com

Best practices

So, what are these evidence-based practices? The Center currently recognizes these 10 evidence-based practices in Louisiana:

• Homebuilders: A home-based intensive family preservation services treatment program that enlists families as partners in assessment, goal setting and treatment planning, with the aim of avoiding unnecessary placement of children and youth into foster care or other out-of-home placements.
• Functional Family Therapy (FFT): Home-based intensive therapeutic model for families with multiple risk factors, serving youth ages 10 to 18 in the context of their families. The goals are to reduce behavioral and emotional problems in youth through family therapy that engages and motivates the family to improve family functioning, and change behaviors such as truancy, aggression and substance use.
• Multisystemic Therapy (MST): An intensive home-, family- and community-based treatment serving youth ages 12 to 17, in the context of their families, who are exhibiting significant negative behaviors such as chronic or violent juvenile offenses.
• Assertive Community Treatment (ACT): An intensive home- and community-based intervention delivered by an interdisciplinary team, for individuals 18 and older with a severe and persistent mental illness, with the goal of promoting symptom stability, increasing the individual’s ability to cope and relate to others, and enhancing the highest level of functioning in the community.
• Functional Family Therapy – Child Welfare (FFT-CW): Home-based intensive therapeutic model for families of youth ages birth to 18, where there are issues of child safety/neglect/family violence. The goals are to address safety and risk factors, change referral behaviors, reduce child maltreatment risk and preserve home placement.
• Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT): Therapy that focuses on improving parent-child relationships, by coaching the parents of young children in specific skills to help establish a nurturing relationship with their child, foster positive behavior and discourage negative behavior.
• Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP): A parent-child therapy for children up to age 6, which addresses trauma with the caregiver and child, with the goal of supporting and strengthening the parent-child relationship as a vehicle for restoring and protecting the child’s mental health.
• Youth- and Preschool-PTSD Treatment (YPT and PPT): For children who have experienced trauma, a therapy that works with parent and child to acknowledge the trauma experienced, learn skills to cope with trauma reminders and reduce the severity of trauma-related symptoms.
• Triple P Positive Parenting Program (Triple P-Standard Level 4): Parenting skills program for parents seeking intensive training in positive parenting skills.
• Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT): For youth ages 3 to 18 who have experienced trauma, this therapy provides skills for relaxation, emotion regulation and coping, and helps both the child and the caregiver to understand and process the trauma experience, to reduce trauma-related symptoms and enhance future safety.

By identifying these evidence-based practices, Louisiana behavioral health providers are able to apply the most appropriate therapy to youth and families, helping them to heal and live full, healthy lives.

To learn more about the Center for Evidence to Practice, visit laevidencetopractice.com.