Mental Health and Special Populations
The rate of mental illness and emotional distress is on the rise and suicide is among the leading causes of death for adults aged 45 and younger. Access to adequate treatment, however, remains difficult. Much of this is due to deficiencies in policy making and program implementation.
Our team of behavioral health scientists, policy development professionals and program implementation experts understand that combating mental health issues and reducing the rate of suicide requires the engagement and commitment of people in many sectors, both inside and outside of government. We help design, build and implement customized prevention strategies, frameworks and approaches that meet the needs of any population, be it general or specific to an at-risk group such as adults or adolescents, military members or Veterans, or LGBTQ+ populations.
Approach
Aptive experts have decades of experience working in the federal, state and local health sectors as well as in the executive branch of the government. We serve as a trusted partner in connecting health care stakeholders to advance health objectives. We arm our clients with data and insights to inform strategic decision making, focusing on the advancement of integrated, value-based care. Aptive uses evidence-informed methods, which are necessary to building a systematic and comprehensive approach to mental health and suicide prevention.
Capabilities
- Program Evaluation
- Community Engagement
- Suicide Prevention
- Diversity, Equity and Cultural Competency
- Systems Thinking
- Community Mental Health Improvement, Organizational Planning and Management
- Communications and Change Management
- Data Management and Analytics
Our subject matter experts apply scientific methods to evaluate the effectiveness and efficacy of mental health and special populations programs to ensure they are producing the intended outcomes. The insights from our evaluations provide a better understanding of how to better manage resources, identify areas for improvement and provide accountability for stakeholders.
Aptive is known for our engagement strategies, listening skills and techniques that place an emphasis on increasing the volume and variety of participation. In each engagement, we carefully create equitable access to the community planning process and develop effective methods of gathering information. The thoughtful execution of our community engagement strategies provides an ease of understanding and confidence in engagement results by local decision makers.
We provide various types of consultation including impact assessment and workforce management in mental health care organizations who provide suicide prevention and support services. Our experts provide workload assessment for suicide prevention coordinators in the VA; recommend pathways to implement systemwide improvements to prevent suicide, substance use disorders, opioid use, mental health care etc.; collaborate on the President’s Agenda for Veteran suicide prevention, and communicate on community grants for research and training initiatives for suicide prevention programs.
We recognize the significant value that diversity, equity and inclusion can bring to people and organizations. Our work enables clients to create teams and initiatives that fully reflect the diverse communities they serve – and empower them to advance their businesses and communities. Our services include measurement, strategy, training and evaluation.
Our team applies a systems-thinking approach to assess all factors and relationships in a system. We empower our clients by outlining how to achieve the best possible outcome using our knowledge of how these factors interact, particularly when working with the nuance of special populations or integrating mental health and primary care.
We work with our clients to engage in strategic and implementation planning and establish a framework to achieve their organizational goals whether at the community level or the federal level. Our planning and management capabilities set our clients up for success by preparing them to respond effectively to changing environments.
Effective communication is an important tool to increase awareness, knowledge and desire to support organizational change. Our subject matter experts provide strategic communications to outline key messaging across identified channels and tactics. We apply best practices in change management, following the Prosci ADKAR model, to assess organizational readiness, build change capability, and equip employees and leadership with the tools to successfully adopt and sustain change.
We develop and provide local, market-centric data dashboards and analyses to provide the most comprehensive and accurate information on the unique attributes and relationships between data entities. These insights improve the ability to integrate and assess health data pipelines for providers, researchers, and population health organizations—so you can deepen your data reach.
Where We are Doing This Work
-
Congressional Evaluation of Nationwide Mental Health Care Delivery U.S. Congress and VA
For the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act, our mental health and data analytics professionals analyze more than nine mental health programs at the VA with millions of datasets, including clinical records, to develop an Annual Report to Congress on program effectiveness, cost effectiveness and patient satisfaction. This report also identifies and summarizes best practices in mental health care delivery, including a focus on virtual mental health services; and review of compliance with opioid and pain management prescriptions guidelines.
-
President’s Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End a National Tragedy of Suicide (PREVENTS) VA Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention (OMHSP)
We provide project management, reporting, implementation and evaluation of VA suicide prevention programs in support of Executive Order 13861, PREVENTS Task Force and the implementation of suicide prevention initiatives related to the Roadmap, under the direction of the VA National Director of Suicide Prevention. After PREVENTS transition to OMHSP in April 2021, the Roadmap’s Agency Actions were realigned to focus on Veterans and our work continues to bolster the work done within the VA Suicide Prevention NOW program and the SP 2.0 strategies.
-
Tribal Health Services Support VHA Office of Tribal Health (OTH)
Since September 2021, we have partnered with VHA to stand up the Office of Tribal Health (OTH) to support delivery of culturally-informed health care for American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) Veterans. Since we began work on this project, starting with meeting support for the White House Council on Native American Affairs (WHCNAA) Nation-To-Nation Dialogue on COVID-19 in October 2021, we have aided in pivotal milestones and deliverables for the OTH workgroup. Our team has emerged as trusted client advisors with historical OTH knowledge and working relationships to ensure a quick, seamless, and low-risk transition from the start.
-
Office of Women’s Health Support VHA Office of Women’s Health (OWH)
Aptive supports VHA’s Office of Women’s Health (OWH) to expand and improve women Veteran’s access to and utilization of high-quality health care benefits. In support of the Johnny Isakson and David P. Roe, M.D Veterans Health Care and Benefits Improvement Act of 2020 (Public Law 116-315), Aptive is responsible for designing, planning, and managing comprehensive assessments on the expansion of VHA’s childcare pilot to all facilities, Congressionally Mandated Reports on Women Veteran Program Managers (WVPMs) and an annual report on women Veterans’ access to gender-specific health care and benefits. Each of our evaluations and reports provide for and review the availability and accessibility of care to women Veterans both now and in the future. Aptive is also responsible for supporting the research surrounding Veteran preference and demand for childcare and leads implementation work with the national director for childcare to support business requirements collection efforts, communications development, policy writing, partner integration and project management.
-
Congressional Evaluation of Suicide Prevention VA Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention (OMHSP)
For the Commander John Scott Hannon Veterans Mental Health Care Improvement Act of 2019, we closely examine an amalgam of laws, regulations, policies and reports and their projected impact on access, quality, experience and cost outcomes of suicide prevention services, producing a report that informs a briefing to the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs of both the Senate and House of Representatives.
