Measuring Up

An overview by Dr. Amber Childs on BHT Impact's Measurement Content Pillar

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Spoiler alert: youth-focused behavioral health solutions have never been able to rely on the same kind of funding support as adult solutions. Even though youth mental health has innovative solutions in spades, they’re constantly charting inconsistent funding waters from payors, health systems, investors, and other funding sources. 

And we’re not surprising anyone here by suggesting that what gets paid for is what gets done. If we’re going to make a transformational impact on youth mental health, we’ve got to bring data to the table to help us make the case for the funding we need. 

Said differently for your RFP: Measurable impact, showing superior outcomes and experiences for youth and families, as well as economic return, can help innovative solutions in youth mental health make the case for more predictable and sustainable funding streams.  

Here’s the problem: measurement has a reputation for being…shall we say… complicated. Figuring out what should be measured and why, who cares about what kinds of data, and how to interpret impact has been a struggle for behavioral health in general. And since youth are not mini-adults, measurement in the youth space adds an extra layer of complexity.  

Youth solutions are trying to innovate. They’re solving big problems. They don’t have time to wade through all the possible measurement practices, decide how and whether to apply them, and how to effectively carry them out. Not only are time and resources at a premium, but innovators may lose real opportunities to make real changes for youth and families if they cannot figure out how to make measurement work for them. 

BHT Impact Measurement Collections

We’re creating a collection of resources to help youth-serving solutions use measurement to our advantage. These collections bring together high-quality information, best practices, and practical guidance to help you tackle the measurement matrix. Since we know that there are so many solutions at play, we’re planning to take an equally broad lens to measurement. 

Generally, we’re planning to unpack a few areas: 

What to Measure and Why:

These collections explore what kinds of data are needed to show the benefits that a solution is likely to have for a young person. And we’re not just talking about symptoms here. Will we have resources on measurement-based care, a measurement strategy for demonstrating psychological and psychosocial functioning? Absolutely. But we’re not stopping there. Expect discussion about measuring the broader impact of factors like social determinants of health, community connections, connections to resources, engagement, and more. These resources are also designed to help you decide what kinds of measurements make the most sense for which kinds of solutions. 

Getting Measurement Done:

You’ve chosen what to measure and why, and now you’re going to go out and measure the things. Sounds simple, but getting measurement done is famously so frustrating. The collection content here will give you practical strategies for incorporating measurement, shine a light on some of the common complications (from buy-in to data platforms to workflow). 

Interactive Measurement Mapping:

To keep things fun and to help you organize the many measures, the when-where-why-and-how of it all, we’ll visually map out all of the categories and specific measures in youth mental health and their applications within collections. You’ll be able to click to your heart's content and hopefully apply measurement with a bit more clarity. These maps are further in the future, but we promise the fun (and function!) will be worth the wait.

Show Us the Money:

Here, we’ll cover everything from payment models that rely on measurement to policy practices that shape funding decisions and more. 

Report Out:

The last thing we want to see is data being collected and falling into a black hole. So we’re serving up collection content to help you consider how to report your data effectively. Collections will cover: 

• Who cares about what? 

  • What are the perspectives and priorities of youth and families, payors, investors, funders, accreditation bodies (goodness gracious, there are so many groups involved)?

  • How can you use measurement to get the relevant folks above on the same page about what you’re doing?

• Connecting the dots

  • How can we use data to tell the most effective story about our work and in ways that matter most (for impact, for funding, and more)?
    

What to Expect

Okay, that all sounds great, but what can we actually expect in the content collections? Great question, love how you’re thinking. 

First, you need to know that we’re keeping it so forreal. Like we said, measurement is complicated. If we had all of the answers and the most tried and true pathway to measurement, we’d all be doing it! There are very real barriers and unknowns to measurement, and we’ll take the opportunity to call those out for discussion in our collections. The idea here is bringing together collective voices, strategies, and insights so that we can problem-solve and move forward together. 

Next, as they grow, measurement BHT Impact measurement collections will include a combination of expert-curated topic and/or issue briefs, downloadable toolkits (instruments, templates, etc.), case studies, youth and family perspective pieces, and multi-media (webinars, podcast episodes, infographics) to:

• Define key measurement frameworks

• Review best-practices and emerging innovations in measurement

• Synthesize and interpret the relevant evidence-based

• Identify barriers and facilitators to measurement implementation

• Provide practical guidance, tools,s and strategy

• Amplify the perspectives and priorities of youth and families 

• Highlight intersections between the multiple aims of measurement

• Draw connections to how measurement influences or impacts key stakeholders (youth, innovators, policymakers, payors, etc) within the youth mental health ecosystem. 

Sneak Preview

Our first collection focuses on social determinants of health (SDoH). Not only are assessing and addressing SDoH an essential strategy in promoting equity in youth mental health and wellbeing, but we’ll also discuss strategies that innovators can leverage to measure how their solutions are impacting the very factors that have the strongest influence on a young person’s wellbeing.

Stay tuned for the first elements of the collection to be released on January 22nd.

Co-Shaping With You!

Listen, we’re going to pull together the best available resources we have to help you tackle the most pressing issues related to measurement. And, we’ve made some educated guesses about what those issues are and the topics to cover. That said, these measurement collections and resources in them are designed to be dynamic, flexible, and forward-thinking. The best way to make these resources as relevant as possible is to co-shape their focus with you!  

We want to know how the resources are hitting the mark, what is missing, what kinds of information and strategy you need, and more. Feel free to sound off in the comments below: What is getting in the way of your ability to measure what matters most? 

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This post was prepared for BHT Impact by Amber W. Childs, PhD, and Anjlee Joshi, Program Director. BHT Impact is a fiscally sponsored project of Moore Impact, a 501(c)3 public charity.