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Substance Use Disorder

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a State Medicaid Director Letter (SMDL 22-003) providing guidance for the first-ever Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) Quality Measure Set, the first of two planned guidance documents from CMS.

The HCBS Quality Measure Set is included in the SMDL, starting on page 14. The list of measures includes the NQF number (if applicable), measure steward, and data collection method, as well as information on whether each measure addresses section 1915(c) waiver assurances and/or can be used to assess access, LTSS rebalancing, and/or community integration and HCBS settings requirements.

Most of the measures are derived from consumer surveys; CMS gives states the flexibility to select measures from the consumer survey of their choice from the following validated tools: NCI®-IDD, NCI-AD™, HCBS CAHPS®, and POM®.

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RCPA member Children’s Crisis Treatment Center (CCTC) hosted the U.S. Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Xavier Becerra for a roundtable discussion on children’s mental health and the impact of community violence on the afternoon of Friday, July 15, 2022. The roundtable was moderated by Dr. Ala Stanford, who is the Regional Director for HSS, responsible for all of Pennsylvania, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. Dr. Stanford is a practicing physician and the founder of the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium, which focuses on testing and vaccinating Philadelphia residents against COVID-19.

Xavier Becerra is the 25th Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and the first Latino to hold the office in the history of the United States. Secretary Becerra was in Philadelphia to promote the launch of the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline), which is a network of more than 200 state and local call centers.

“CCTC was proud to be chosen as the organization the Secretary visited. It was wonderful to share with him the work that is being done in Philadelphia around children’s mental health services and highlight the impactful work CCTC provides in our centers, community, and schools,” said Antonio Valdés, Chief Executive Officer at CCTC.

Date: Thursday, July 28, 2022
Time: 2:00 pm ET
Duration: 1 hour

Training programs are one of the most effective ways to retain staff members and help them grow within your organization. While most organizations create some kind of internal training on a regular basis, crafting effective, engaging content for adult learners can prove challenging.

Cognota, a global software company specializing in improving productivity for learning and development teams, is excited to share best practices for incorporating adult learning principles into your training development.

Visit here for more information or to register for this webinar.

Date: Tuesday, July 19, 2022
Time: 11:30 am – 12:45 pm EDT

Sponsor: The College for Behavioral Health Leadership
Offered in partnership with the American Association for Community Psychiatrists

This webinar is open to all.

This webinar will introduce participants to the Self-Assessment for Modification of Anti-Racism Tool (SMART), an innovative self-directed quality improvement tool developed by the American Association for Community Psychiatry (AACP) to assist community mental health organizations in addressing structural racism. The presenters will describe the process by which SMART was developed, including its grounding in input from community mental health providers and existing health inequity frameworks. The domains and items of SMART, as well as its application process, will be outlined. Presenters will also provide lessons from on-the-ground applications of SMART in diverse community mental health settings.

Learning Objectives:
At the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:

  • Describe the relevance of and importance of addressing structural racism in the community mental health setting;
  • Understand the 5 domains of the Self-Assessment for Modification of Anti-Racism Tool (SMART), including literature evidence supporting the selection of SMART’s domains and items; and
  • Understand the on-the-ground experience of applying SMART in diverse community mental health settings.

Register
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