Audience
The first child psychiatry access program (CPAP), the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Program (MCPAP), began in 2004 to support pediatric primary care providers who address behavioral health concerns presenting in the primary care setting. MCPAP was developed to solve the problem of lack of access to pediatric mental healthcare, especially child psychiatry. Due to workforce shortage challenges, primary care providers could not find pediatric mental healthcare for their patients. MCPAP supports the pediatric primary care providers in 1) assessing and treating mild to moderate mental health concerns presenting in the primary care setting, and 2) finding resources to address mental healthcare needs. MCPAP does this through numerous different platforms including consultation, training and education, and resource and referrals. A core component of all CPAPs is the "warm line" or peer-to-peer consultation model with timely access to a child and adolescent psychiatrist to support the primary care provider. Due to the success of MCPAP in increasing access to pediatric mental healthcare and workforce shortages across the United States, other states began similar programs. Building on the success of MCPAP, MCPAP for Moms was initiated to help perinatal providers detect, assess, and treat mental health and substance use concerns. Similar to expansion across the country after MCPAP demonstrated success, other states began to implement Perinatal Psychiatry Access Programs (PPAPs) modeled on MCPAP for Moms. The benefits provided by these and other programs across the United States led to Sec 10002 of the 21st Century Cures Act, which called for the development of pediatric mental health care access grants to support the development of Pediatric Mental Health Care Access (PMHCA) programs and Screening and Treatment for Maternal Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder (MMHSUD) programs.
This "implementation toolkit" has been developed to guide new PMHCA and MMHSUD grantees with implementation strategies and tools.