COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (PRWEB) October 30, 2019
The Quad Innovation Partnership (QIP), the only higher education partnership of its kind in the United States, is pleased to announce new work with Partners for Children’s Mental Health (PCMH), a center supported by Children’s Hospital Colorado and the University of Colorado Department of Psychiatry.
PCMH operates as across-system resource, training, and implementation hub in order to ultimately increase capacity, access, and quality of youth mental health services in Colorado. It works with partners across the state to identify, scale, and sustain best practices to help connect youth and families to effective mental health treatment and, ultimately, save lives.
One of PCMH’s key action items is school-based mental health care and suicide prevention. Students from QIP will conduct and deliver interdisciplinary research to assess best practice suicide prevention programs that address key risk factors among elementary and middle school students in Colorado. PCMH currently offers support to high schools; the project will help PCMH expand support to elementary and middle school students statewide.
“The Quad works on many important initiatives that impact our communities and this initiative with Partners for Children’s Mental Health is one of the most critical items our organization has been a part of,” said Jake Eichengreen, Executive Director of the Quad Innovation Partnership. “As noted by PCMH, suicide is the #1 cause of death among Colorado youth ages 10-24. This is a massive problem and we have assembled a dedicated team to produce outcomes for PCMH that address real need and will strengthen their essential work.”
QIP is comprised of students, staff and faculty from Colorado College, Pikes Peak Community College, University of Colorado Colorado Springs and the US Air Force Academy. This diverse group delivers professional-grade recommendations, tactics and solutions for a varied array of clients, covering a wide range of initiatives and issues that impact the lives of people in southern Colorado and the nation.
“The Quad’s recommendations will be critical to our efforts to provide a scalable, low-cost suicide prevention package to schools across Colorado,” said Shannon Van Deman, Executive Director of Partners for Children’s Mental Health and Vice President of the Pediatric Mental Health Institute at Children’s Hospital Colorado. “The Quad is recognized as a leader tackling some of the biggest challenges facing our state. We’re excited to partner with them to create real impact for youth and families.”
The project was made possible through the generosity of Mark and Shannon Breuer and their family, who are dedicated to supporting the most effective initiatives in expanding behavioral health access, reducing youth suicide, and positively impacting our community’s children and families.
About the Quad Innovation Partnership: A collaborative initiative of Colorado College, Pikes Peak Community College, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and the United States Air Force Academy[1], the Quad deepens the ability of graduates to innovate within professional settings in the Pikes Peak Region. As the only initiative combining the capacities, students and faculty of a private liberal arts college, a regional community college, a state research university and a US service academy in the United States, the Quad’s value is built on the diversity of institutions it represents. All projects the Quad facilitates leverage the combined capacities of these four institutions in order to work together to discover, validate and initiate solutions for public, private and philanthropic clients
[1] Insofaras authorized by Federal law. The Quad is not an organization of the Federal government and USAFA offers no underwriting or endorsement of the activities.