Center for Team Effectiveness to Accelerate EBP Implementation in Children's Mental Health Services: Methods Core

PROJECT SUMMARY (Methods Core) Team approaches to meet organizational goals are utilized broadly and globally in industry, the military, space exploration, and health settings. The TEAMS Methods Core is integral to adapting and advancing team-based models, approaches, strategies, methods, and evaluation for children’s mental health and for the larger center activities. Of note, the Methods Core will lead innovation by leveraging natural language processing (NLP) technology to develop tools to rapidly assess team functioning in real-world settings. Within community service systems caring for children with mental health needs, the assessment of team effectiveness—although crucial for improving team functioning—can be a laborious and cumbersome task. Innovations in technology related to the automatic capturing of communication between team members can lessen the burden in assessing and improving team effectiveness. The Methods Core will lead innovation by leveraging natural language processing technology to develop tools to rapidly assess team functioning in real-world settings. The Methods Core investigators have already been collaborating closely with the Administrative Core, the R01, and the R34 teams, and Community Service System Workgroup stakeholders in selecting, adapting and shaping strategies and approaches to implementation and improvement for children’s mental health across service system settings. The Methods Core is a team effort led by Drs. Aarons (implementation science, mental health), Burke (team effectiveness, team strategies), and Sklar (mental health services, evaluation) (see biosketches). The Methods Core is organized to address four aims: Aim 1) Integrate models and strategies from team effectiveness research and implementation science to improve children’s mental health services, Aim 2) Apply multilevel and advanced methods and designs for team-based implementation research, and Aim 3) Lead the design and implementation of a multi-level, longitudinal, iterative evaluation to refine the Center’s research activities, maximize the Center’s impact and inform plans for future collaborative research.