Children, Youth and Families

Many youth with brain injuries may experience difficulties with emotional regulation due to changes in brain function. As a behavioral health professional, you should be prepared to provide immediate and long-term care that includes strategies and support to help youth manage emotions to effectively cope with frustration, anger, anxiety, and depression, among other things.

This course is designed to provide you with knowledge and skills to better understand and support children and youth who have experienced brain injuries. It covers a wide range of topics, including types and classifications of brain injuries, special considerations for working with children and youth, an in-depth look at the school system and academic supports, and specific case studies to illuminate how to work with youth with mild, moderate, and severe brain injuries. Through this course, you will gain a deeper understanding of the impact of brain injuries on a child or youth’s life, including physical, cognitive, and emotional consequences, and come away with tools to help support the individual’s specific needs.

Screening protocols are essential for helping individuals with brain injuries access the care they need. Brain injuries can significantly impact a person's health, function, and well-being, putting them at higher risk for various physical and mental health challenges. This course focuses on the tools and strategies necessary to assess and evaluate the impact of brain injuries accurately. You'll learn how to gather detailed information about an individual's injury history, conduct comprehensive health history interviews, and recognize when specialist care is needed.

In addition to addressing the direct effects of brain injuries, this course also explores the unique challenges faced by individuals as they adjust to life post-injury. These challenges often include communication difficulties, mood disturbances, and cognitive issues, which can complicate access to care — especially for those with co-occurring behavioral health conditions. By understanding these added complexities, you will be better equipped to support both patients and their caregivers, tailoring treatment plans to meet each individual's specific needs.

As a group, people with disabilities fare far worse than their nondisabled counterparts across a broad range of health indicators and social determinants of health. Adults with disabilities are four times more likely than people with no disabilities to report their health to be fair or poor (40.3% vs. 9.9%). The absence of professional training on disability competency for healthcare practitioners is one of the most significant barriers preventing people with disabilities from receiving appropriate and effective health care.

This introductory course on disability is designed to provide behavioral health professionals with knowledge and skills to better understand and support individuals who have disabilities. This course covers a wide range of topics, including the many identities of people with disabilities, and the social determinants of health, ableism, and the previous models of care that have negatively impacted the well-being of the disabled community. It also highlights what disability-competent care looks like, and the importance of activism, continuous learning, and the disability justice movement.

An overview of the Colorado Code of Regulations (CCR), along with the revised BHA rules and regulations, how these changes align with the broader BH policy reform, and key changes and considerations when navigating the regulations.

An overview of basic harm reduction principles, a harm reduction philosophy and how that manifests as risk reduction tools, an approach to care, and a policy platform. Harm reduction strategies and their evidence base are explored.

An overview of two types of collaboration that can enhance care for individuals and families, best practices for care compacts, and continuum of care compacts from two providers to multiple providers and system approaches.

An overview of key principles of early childhood mental health and strategies for applying these principles to working with young children (0 to five years) and their families, including how to approach assessment and case conceptualization.

About one in five adolescents have a current, diagnosed mental or behavioral health condition in the United States. According to the National Survey of Children's Health (2024), "Between 2016 and 2023, the prevalence of diagnosed mental or behavioral health conditions among adolescents increased 35 percent (from 12.0% to 20.3%)."

This course is about considerations for caregivers and their role in supporting their children throughout the process of receiving psychosocial care for mental or behavioral health conditions. It highlights emotional parenting actions and their alternative counterpart called effective parenting actions. Finally, it offers an overview of motivational interviewing.

 

An overview of lessons learned from CCBHC demonstration implementation at the provider level, including best practices and common challenges.