The IDEAS Center Guiding Model

The IDEAS Center, an NIMH-funded ALACRITY research center, builds on an infrastructure developed over nearly two decades of collaboration between Center researchers and New York State's Office of Mental Health (OMH) and state and national stakeholders. 

This longstanding partnership creates the only national center that is solely focused on integrating research evidence into the policymaking process in state systems serving children and adolescents with serious mental health disorders (SMHD).   

Over the next several years, IDEAS researchers across six universities and multiple disciplines (i.e. systems science, anthropology, epidemiology, psychology, psychiatry, and emergency medicine) will develop tools to improve the uptake of research evidence by child mental health state policymakers, and test two practical accelerator strategies to improve state-delivered children's mental health care: (1) testing a new diagnostic tool (K-CAT) and treatment protocol for youth visiting emergency departments seeking help for their mental health problems; and (2) testing a phone-based parent peer support intervention for parents or caregivers of youth receiving services through NYS' OnTrack program for youth with first episode psychosis. 

​Read more here about our Center aims.

Our work is guided by Shortell’s Levels of Change Framework, and Leeman et al’s “beyond implementation strategies.” Combined, these frameworks account for the complex, multi-level nature of delivering evidence-based care in state child health and mental health systems, and will guide the development of tools and strategies to improve both the quality of care that children and families receive, and more importantly, improve their outcomes.

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