Louisiana Department of Health and LSUHSC Partnership Helps Therapists Deliver High-Quality Therapy to Youth
Louisiana Department of Health and LSUHSC Partnership
Helps Therapists Deliver High-Quality Therapy to Youth
Written by Jennifer Hannon
Louisiana Department of Health
In order to help remove barriers to putting evidence-based interventions into practice for Louisiana’s Medicaid-enrolled youth, the Louisiana Department of Health’s Office of Behavioral Health (OBH) launched the Center for Evidence to Practice (Center) in 2018 at Louisiana State University–Health Sciences Center. The Center serves as a hub for innovation and cross-sectoral collaboration, to improve behavioral health outcomes and to address challenges related to sustaining quality practice. The Center provides training and implementation support to providers of Evidence-Based Practices (EBPs) within Medicaid-funded behavioral health services for youth. In addition and in alignment with evidence that trafficking survivors benefit from specialized complex trauma interventions, OBH developed a strategy to train clinicians across the state to adapt evidence-based trauma treatments to most effectively meet the needs of human trafficking survivors. The Center has also developed the “EBP Referral Guide/Decision Tree” to help consumers and referring parties learn about which EBP may be right for a particular youth and family. The “EBP Service Descriptions” then describe each EBP in more detail. Perhaps, most importantly, the “Interactive Map of Medicaid EBP Providers” helps anyone search for a provider of a particular EBP in their local area. All of these tools can be found at the Center’s website at www.laevidencetopractice.com in the section labeled EBP Community Resources.