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Our Focus Areas
HEALTH DISPARITIES AND EQUITY
The Issue
Health and mental health disparities are noted by a variety of health and mental health experts as significant barrier to health for much of America. The causes and effects of disparities are complex and there is little consensus about the causes or appropriate responses to disparities in health and mental health.
Our approach
Change Matrix has proven experience in working with communities addressing cultural and linguistic competence, health inequities and disparities, cross-cultural communication and leadership, and conflict management. Change Matrix is currently sponsoring dialogue around difficult and fractious issues that lead to building common ground which enable groups to move forward into planning for the future.
LEADERSHIP FOR SYSTEMS CHANGE
The Issue
Being a leader in times of economic downturns, shifting demographics, and changing concepts for services and supports is challenging at best. Addressing these challenges call for leadership that embraces the ethics, values, and principles of inter-agency collaboration and partnerships with recipients of services, their families, and communities. Leading in this environment requires a capacity to address service disparities and ensure equity through the provision of culturally and linguistically competent services. In these changing times, we need leaders who are competent in and willing to foster systems change. The role of the leader in times of change requires each of us to develop the knowledge, skills, and tools to be able to differentiate between technical and adaptive challenges and employ strategies to shift values, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors among individuals and systems to support the changes we seek. We as leaders need to motivate change, manage change, and evaluate change in this complex environment.
We support leaders to:
- Identify the difference between leadership, authority, and management
- Identify adaptive work (that requires shifts in values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors)
- Analyze leadership challenges identified through self-reflection
- Develop skills to strengthen and support their role as change agent
- Identify and develop skills to move through resistance to shift behaviors
- Develop strategic and implementation plan for addressing systems change
Our approach
At Change Matrix, a model of leadership development has been created that identifies the levels of learning and applies interventions for the specific level. Specifically, Change Matrix includes the capacity to provide training, evaluation and coaching to leaders in various stages of their development.
Partners
- Leadership Consulting
- Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development
Projects
- Kalamazoo Community Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services
- Michigan Leadership Institute – IMPACT, Ingham County’s System of Care
- Quality Trust, Washington, DC.
A PUBLIC HEALTH APPROACH TO CHILDREN’S MENTAL HEALTH
The Issue
There is growing recognition in the field that mental health is an integral part of overall health for all, and that mental health is largely impacted by the environments in which we live, work, and play. However, the current approach focuses almost exclusively on children’s mental health after problems develop, an approach that results in high economic and personal cost. A new public health framework offers guidance for leaders to approach children’s mental health in a new way.
Mental health care systems, service providers, and other child-serving systems are well positioned to work together to shape environments that optimize mental health for individuals and communities. However, getting started and moving forward is complex and can be overwhelming.
Our approach
The Change Matrix team and our partners hold advanced degrees and have experience in public health and mental health care systems. We co-authored a seminal document on a framework for a public health approach to children’s mental health funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and published by the National Technical Assistance Center for Children’ Mental Health at Georgetown University.
We facilitate leaders through a process to:
- Frame their approach
- Develop their plan
- Identify funding strategies
- Gather, organize, and analyze their data
- Implement and evaluate their action step and interventions
Resources
Miles, J., Espiritu, R., Horen, N., Sebian, J., & Waetzig, E. (2010). A Public Health Approach to Children’s Mental Health: A Conceptural Framework. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development, National Technical Assistance Center for Children’s Mental Health.
Partners
Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development
Projects
Hogg Foundation
COLLABORATION -
(content to come)