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What if we considered mental health primarily in terms of strengths, needs and adverse events and considered diagnosis as a secondary indicator?

It is more important than ever to make a concerted effort to interact with young children in our world of digital technology where many toddlers have a device in their hand much of the day.

My team works to evaluate whether mental health programs make an impact on people’s lives. I lead a team of data sheros, and one thing I drill into my gals is that no soldier should ever be left on the battlefield. One common mistake early coders or even experienced coders make is not tracking every data point.

Engaging children and families who are un-served and under-served often entails overcoming a number of obstacles which have prevented prior successful treatment. To benefit from care, youth and families must 1) recognize a need exists, 2) decide to seek help, and 3) find and access appropriate care.

When helping to evaluate mental health and behavioral health programs, my theory is that all programs have a mixture of participants who are thriving, striving and sliding (out the door) in the program.

As a consultant helping to evaluate mental health care programs, I am often challenged to assist providers in developing a definition of success for their program. Harder still is for a provider to identify a definition of success for a participant of their program. And the most challenging is often defining indicators of participant improvement toward success.

Logic Models are very useful tools used as a visualization models by programs, companies, or service managers to outline business or service objectives. These models seek to visually organize targets and goals to better communicate to the workforce or public.

We have all heard of business intelligence or BI solutions, but what is a client intelligence or CI solution? A simple internet search will produce a variety of “consumer intelligence”, “customer intelligence” and “client intelligence” systems – all aimed at helping businesses understand how their customers, clients and consumers make decisions.

Every day, across the country, mental health workers are filling out assessments. Every minute, the mountain of information on individuals of all ages is growing. Their stories, caught in multiple choice sized chunks, are being held in bits and pieces, on 8.5 x 11 papers and digital forms, in file cabinets and on secure network drives, in offices and in the cloud. Why? For what end?

Options for visual data analytics abound. Whether you’re using a standard power house tool like Tableau, or have invested in a custom assessment software tool like P-CIS, you have some impact ready visuals at your fingertips.