What is Stepped Care?

Stepped Care is an effective approach to mental health services by “stepping up or stepping down” for a level of care needed to address each student’s needs. It’s a wide range of services that include not only the center but the campus and community. A continuum of care that identifies the needs of the students and connects them to the right source.

 The Key Principles of Stepped Care

1. Provide timely access to mental health services and education
2. Customize an approach to specific needs and requests
3. An opportunity to connect with other campus services and support
4. Provide excellent opportunities to connect with other Redhawks
5. To give the student the ability to participate actively in care options
6. To provide referrals to community providers
7. To use a strength based approached to client autonomy

The following is a list of individual approaches to specific needs of the student

• One problem focused session
• Short-term, goal directed individual or group counseling
• Online self-guided resources and screenings
• Referrals to peer, campus, and community support
• Wellness workshops, academic services and support as well as face to face psychoeducation

Screening Appointments

Your first appointment at CBHA, you will meet with staff for a brief screening/assessment of your needs. This appointment will last approximately 30 minutes. The stepped care model and risk assessment will help make treatment recommendations.

These factors that guide recommendations may be:

• Level of autonomy and support needed
• Specialized treatment needs
• The severity of presenting concerns

Scope of Practice

Some students’ needs may not fall within the Center’s treatment model or scope of practice. If this occurs, a student will be referred and connected to a community provider that can better meet their individual needs. These are some common reasons to request services from the community.

1. Students who require weekly, on- going individual counseling or excessive utilization of crisis intervention services.
2. Students with a concern that cannot be ethnically treated within our short term individual counseling model(bi-weekly sessions)
3. Students who present a chronic, ongoing risk of harm to themselves or others and whose symptoms don’t respond to outpatient crisis interventions. This includes students with a history of multiple hospitalizations (more than 1), chronic suicidality, homicidality, and/or a history of repeated suicide attempts (more than 1).
4. Students whose behavior is indicative of progressive deterioration requiring intensive intervention.
5. Students who are non-compliant with treatment, as defined by frequent no-shows for any services, repeated stops and starts to therapy, and/or repeated requests for a different clinician.
6. Students presenting with a history of treatment that is beyond agency resources, and which is likely to continue to be necessary.
7. Students presenting with concerns that fall outside staff expertise and/or CBHA’s mission, including but not limited to court-ordered, forensically-oriented, mandated treatment, letters of support(ESA), and evaluations for psychological testing.
8. Students who exhibit inappropriate, harassing, menacing, threatening, or violent behaviors toward CBHA staff.