Five California Teams Selected to Participate in the Delta Center California Learning Lab

BERKELEY, CA: Delta Center California is excited to announce the five teams that will participate in the Delta Center California Learning Lab. In the Learning Lab, these competitively selected local teams will complete a project focused on advancing the integration of primary care and mental health care or substance use disorder treatment and recovery services. The selected teams are:

  • California LGBTQ Health and Human Services Network, and Marin County Behavioral Health and Recovery Services
  • Community Health Center Network, LifeLong Medical Care, and Axis Community Health
  • Integral Community Solutions Institute, Fresno Barrios Unidos, Centro La Familia, NAMI Fresno, UCSF Fresno
  • Gateways Hospital and Mental Health Center, and Los Angeles Christian Health Center 
  • Uplift Family Services, Pacific Clinics, and School Health Clinics of Santa Clara County

Each project consists of a partnership between behavioral health (which includes mental health and/or substance use) and primary care providers. Partners work in safety net organizations, including community-based organizations, Federally Qualified Health Centers, county behavioral health departments, and local networks. Teams are geographically spread across California, with representation from the Bay Area, the Central Valley, and Southern California. 

Percy Howard is the President and CEO of California Institute for Behavioral Health Services, and serves as a Delta Center California Advisory Group member and Learning Lab team coach. He is eager to help facilitate shared learning opportunities. “The Delta Center California Learning Lab Collaborative is not just a great opportunity for the selected teams to learn and implement strategies for primary care/behavioral health integration from experts,” Howard said. “Additionally, it’s sure to be a fertile environment for peer-to-peer learning and skill development.”

In addition to the goals of advancing integration, all of Learning Lab teams’ projects will:

  • Focus on adults who need specialty mental health care and/or substance use disorder treatment.
  • Directly impact consumer care, experience, and/or outcomes. 
  • Include people with lived experience in design and implementation.
  • Advance racial equity, which is the systematic fair treatment of people of all races that results in equitable opportunities and outcomes for everyone and requires naming and dismantling systems of oppression (Race Forward).

 

Over the course of the 16-month Learning Lab, teams will receive one-on-one coaching and other direct technical support from Delta Center California to advance their individual projects. Teams will participate in three convenings and a site visit with an organization that is a leader in primary care and behavioral health integration. They will also inform Delta Center California’s State Policy and Partnership Roundtable, a group of eight state-level organizations representing safety-net primary care and behavioral health providers, payers, and consumers in California. The Roundtable’s goal is to identify shared policy priorities that support better health care and outcomes.

“We’re excited to support this work and watch the Learning Lab teams develop their innovative projects,” said Catherine Teare, associate director of the Advancing People-Centered Care team at the California Health Care Foundation. “People’s need for effective behavioral health treatment has only grown under the COVID-19 pandemic. These teams are responding with projects that provide care to people who need it most. We hope project learnings can become policies that will help people across California." 

Funded by the California Health Care Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Delta Center California is a two-pronged initiative that brings together safety net organizations (through the Learning Lab) and policy experts (through the State Policy and Partnership Roundtable) to accelerate primary care and behavioral health integration as well as care improvement.