TEAM4Access

About the Project

The Talking Early About Mental Health for Access (TEAM4Access) project would like to develop and test a virtual mentoring program that gives clinicians more training on talking with parents about toddler mental health risk screening in primary care. To create this program, we are partnering with ECHO (Extension for Community Health Outcomes)-Chicago, which already hosts a variety of successful online trainings for primary care clinicians.

echo logo We will collaborate with 15 pediatric clinicians and 10 English speaking caregivers of 1- to 5-year-old children, and 5 Spanish speaking caregivers of 1- to 5-year-old children to help us develop the TEAM4Access ECHO series. We will then make changes to the TEAM4Access program as needed and test out the series via the ECHO-Chicago platform. clinician training

We hope to improve clinician’s competence and confidence for talking about toddler mental health risk with parents, deciding on next steps, and discussing recommendations, thereby improving families’ trust and engagement with preventive mental health interventions. Lastly, we want to know that the program is practical, and that clinicians want to be part of this virtual program.

Team4Access Team

Andrea Spencer(she/her/hers)

Project Co-Lead

Andrea Spencer, MD, is the Vice Chair for Research in the Pritzker Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She is a child psychiatrist, expert in pediatric integrated behavioral health care and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and child mental health disparities researcher. Dr. Spencer is the Project Lead of TEAM4Access, which is developing an ECHO tele-mentoring program to improve family-centered communication about early mental health risk in pediatric primary care, as well as co-lead of the Career Development and Training Workgroup in the MHE Center's Engage-Admin Core.

Iheoma U. Iruka (pronounced EE-OMAH EE-ROO-KAH)(she/her/hers)

Project Co-Lead

Iheoma U. Iruka, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Maternal and Child Health at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As an applied developmental psychologist, she is dedicated to promoting the well-being of children from the prenatal stage through early childhood. Dr. Iruka’s work bridges research, program development, and policy, with a central focus on ensuring that all children and their families have access to programs and systems that support their flourishing. Dr. Iruka is the Project Co-Lead on TEAM4Access, bringing her developmental and sociocultural expertise in strengthening children’s early mental health.

John Parkhurst(he/him/his)

Co-Investigator

John T. Parkhurst, PhD, is a pediatric psychologist and Associate Professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Psychology Director of Primary Collaborative Care at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. He leads integrated behavioral health programs supporting pediatric primary care clinicians, including leading Resources for Advancing Mental Health in Pediatrics (RAMP), and educational resource hub. His work focuses on decision making, patient-reported outcomes, and systems of care that improve early mental health identification and equitable access to services. He is a Co-Investigator on TEAM4Access and a consultant on Peds-BRITE.

Courtney Zulauf-McCurdy(she/her/hers)

Co-Investigator

Courtney Zulauf-McCurdy, PhD, is a clinical psychologist who values close collaboration with caregivers to support young children’s healthy development. She brings experience in school- and primary care–based interventions for early childhood behavioral concerns and is excited to be part of a center committed to accessible, evidence-based care for all young children and their families.

Susan Friedland(she/her/hers)

Co-Investigator

Susan Friedland MD, is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and clinical assistant professor at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She is a member of the Center's TEAM4Access Project, where she helps develop behavioral health curricula for primary care pediatricians. She also led a study at Lurie Children's Hospital demonstrating the successful use of the MAPS-EASI toddler irritability screening tool in primary care. She has extensive experience in teaching pediatricians how to recognize, evaluate and medically manage common behavioral conditions, as well as how to choose among common therapy modalities when referring to behavioral treatment.

Adriana Weisleder(she/her/hers)

Co-Investigator

Adriana Weisleder, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Northwestern University and Principal Investigator of the Child Language Lab. She is a developmental psychologist who studies how children’s own learning capacities interact with their environments to shape developmental outcomes, focusing especially on children from multilingual and language minority homes. A key goal of her work is to build a more robust evidence base for understanding variability in development across diverse contexts, which can be used to better support health and academic outcomes for young children from all backgrounds.

Kryztal Pena(she/her/hers)

Research Coordinator

Kryztal Pena, BA, is a Behavioral Research Coordinator III at Lurie Children’s Hospital. She received her a BA in Public Health from the University of Illinois at Chicago and has interests in addressing mental health disparities among minorities and underserved populations. Kryztal is part of the TEAM4Access project where she led the Spanish qualitative interviews for caregivers, facilitated the Spanish Caregiver Collaborative (one of the MHE Center's Community Advisory Boards), and assisted with the creation of a pediatric mental health training program for clinicians. Kryztal is excited to get this study running and get families more access to resources for their toddlers.

Thilini Fernando, MPH(she/her/hers)

Research Coordinator

Thilini Fernando, MPH, is a Clinical Research Coordinator I at Lurie Children’s Hospital in the Pritzker Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health. She received her BS in Public Health from Loyola University of Chicago and MPH with a concentration in Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences from Emory University. Thilini is the Research Coordinator for the TEAM4Access project where she manages study operations, data collection, and assists with material development for the pediatrician mental health training. Thilini is excited to contribute to meaningful research and strengthen clinical workflows to support child and adolescent mental health.