MOST: A partnership approach for expanding mental health care

Mental health counseling has been successfully delivered through telehealth in Leon County, Texas for the past six years. The telehealth model was developed using a partnership approach, which is a four-stage model that 1) establishes partnership goals, 2) organizes partners, 3) develops intervention strategies, and 4) evaluates outcomes. The Leon County telehealth model was originally managed by a community-academic partnership who received seed funding from the Office of Rural Health Policy (ORHP) in 2004 to implement the model; however, after grant funding ended in 2007, services have been sustained and managed locally. Mental health providers at the Texas A&M Telehealth Counseling Clinic have provided services successful in alleviating client distress, decreasing depressive symptoms, and increasing Mental Health Composite Scores among rural patients. Due to the successes achieved in Leon County, four additional rural counties within the Brazos Valley region of east-central Texas expressed interest in replicating the framework to expand mental health counseling services into their communities. Using a partnership approach, local counties organized regional stakeholders, including formal community leaders, academic researchers, and health and social service providers. In 2012, Madison County, Texas replicated the telehealth model through seed funding from ORHP.  In addition, Washington, Burleson, and Grimes Counties are in the process of replicating the model to expand telehealth services into their respective communities. The partnership approach has been successfully applied to expanding mental health counseling through telehealth in rural communities in Texas and can be applicable to rural areas.