Integrated Behavioral Health Program

The Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine (GPAM) at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan offers an Integrated Behavioral Health Program providing comprehensive, fully integrated care that allows medical and behavioral heath services to work together to meet the unique needs specifically for GPAM patients. The program has a proud 20 year history in developing and providing high quality integrated behavioral health care to patients at Children’s Hospital of Michigan and continues to expand and improve services to meet an ever growing need.

Getting Started

Integrated Behavioral Health, also known as Collaborative Care, in GPAM begins with screening tools given to patients at their medical visits. The feedback from these tools, and the subsequent conversations physician’s have with patients/families, often result in families working with one of the GPAM clinical social workers to address the concerns raised. A social work assessment is focused on identifying the specific needs of a child/family. Once needs are identified, intervention options are discussed and a comprehensive intervention plan is cooperatively developed. This plan can include medical follow up, referral to community resources or, in the event of a need for behavioral health support, a direct referral to a GPAM behavioral health program therapist.

Community Partners

Behavioral health therapists are drawn from three distinct behavioral health provider groups within the program.

The first group is a collaborative with Wayne State University’s (WSU) Psychology program. With the support of The Children’s Foundation, supervised WSU Psychology doctoral students provide direct service to clinic patients at no charge. These providers meet weekly with clinic social workers for care coordination, collaborate with physicians and meet with patients in the clinic space. With this high level of integration these providers are able to meet many of the patients’ needs.

The second therapist group is through a cooperative with The Children’s Center’s Community Outreach Division. Through this cooperative, a Children’s Center therapist is designated to see GPAM patients in the clinic. This allows for co-located, insurance based services for children who require higher intensity services. GPAM social workers meet weekly with the Children’s Center therapist to review patients and facilitate communication with physicians directly as needed