Submission Type:Â Research-BasedÂ
Final Rating: Promising ResearchÂ
Focus Area: Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health
Focus Population: Children, Caregivers, Guardians, Medical Providers, Parents, and Other
Date Submitted: Fall 2024
Contact Information:Â
Rebecca EggerÂ
415-449-2813
333 SE 2nd Ave Ste 2000, Miami, Florida 33131
Goals and Outcomes:Â
Goal 1: To give the young children and families of Oklahoma access to Little Otter’s whole-family measurement-based and evidence-based model of telehealth care. By being able to provide comprehensive services to young children and their families in Oklahoma, our goals would be to
• Increase access to evidence-based, developmentally-sensitive, high-quality mental health services to the children and families of Oklahoma.
• Improve mental health outcomes for the children, parents, and families of Oklahoma through the implementation of Little Otter’s evidence-based, virtual whole-family mental health care.
Since we collect data at every stage of our care journey, we are accountable not only for access to care but also for clinical quality as measured by clinical outcomes.
Goal 1 Outcomes: Access and Utilization Metrics
• Time from referral to speaking with a licensed mental health provider, time to a fulldiagnostic assessment, and rates of ongoing engagement.Â
Current Metrics: At Little Otter, our families are connected with a licensed mental health provider in less than 24 hours. On average, less than 7 days pass from referral to a full diagnostic assessment. 95% of our families continue after the first session. Our average number of sessions is 12-18.
Goal 1 Outcomes: Developmentally-Sensitive Clinical Quality Metrics
• Session level measures
Symptom Severity and Improvement of Child: Severity of illness at baseline and at the session level (CGI-S), Clinical Improvement (CGI-I), and session-level domain-specific measures specific to the patient’s presentation. Measures are chosen based on the patient’s age and developmental stage.
Symptom Severity and Improvement of Parent: When providing direct mentalÂ
health care to parents, we use the outcome measure listed above.
Brief/Executive summary of program:Â
A New Model of Care: Little Otter has developed a platform and clinical model to provide virtual whole-family mental health care. This new model is grounded in science, best clinical practices, and the philosophy that mental health care should address the family ecosystem, not just individual family members. This approach is designed to meet the comprehensive needs of children, parents, and families, aiming to change lives through improved mental health care and strengthened family relationships.
• Measurement at every stage of the journey: Our care starts with the Little Otter Child & Family Mental Health Check-up, our proprietary developmentally-sensitive screening tool developed from reliable and valid measures that ensures that we understand the unique needs and strengths of both the individual family members and the entire family system. Based on the results of the Check-up, we administer developmentally-appropriate subspecialty measures to support diagnostic and clinical decision-making and conduct a structured diagnostic assessment to link the family with the appropriate evidence-based clinical care pathways. We then craft measurable treatment goals for care, which include at least one family-focused goal, and collect data at every session to track progress and clinical outcomes. Results guide data-driven decision-making and are shared with parents as collaborators. Our approach to measurement-based care allows us to provide populationlevel data to our partners as well, giving them a better sense of the needs of their population.
• Comprehensive, evidence-based care pathways: We provide developmentally-sensitive, evidencebased therapy and psychiatric care for the full range of mental health disorders facing children birth to 18, including dyadic, parent-child interventions for infants and young children. Additionally, we provide evidence-based individual therapy and psychiatric care for parents facing anxiety, depression, ADHD, and traumatic stress, as well as parent coaching to support caregivers in responding to the mental health needs of their children and to support co-parenting and parental alignment. We have a specialized, research-backed perinatal mental health program for birthing and non-birthing parents that focuses on the mental health needs of the parent, infant, and emerging parent-child relationship. Finally, we also offer couples counseling and family therapy services.
Little Otter | Mental Health Services for the Whole Family