Researchers Innovate to Embed Behavioral Health in Specialty Care
As the child and youth mental health crisis continues—identified as a top priority in Cincinnati Children’s 2025 Community Health Needs Assessment—mental and behavioral health experts are seeking innovative ways to improve behavioral health care.
Through the Roadmap for Emotional Health Project—a collaboration between the American Board of Pediatrics and Cincinnati Children’s James M. Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence—pediatric specialists, pediatric psychologists, patients and families have identified strategies and developed resources to promote resilience and emotional health among children with chronic medical conditions.
Specialty care clinics are the primary place where children with chronic medical conditions receive care. For this reason, the Roadmap empowers specialty care providers to address emotional health challenges experienced by children with chronic medical conditions such as sickle cell disease, epilepsy and congenital heart disease.
The project’s pediatric psychologists aim to reduce stigma by raising awareness about the emotional impact of living with a chronic condition, identifying and providing resources, building mental health assessment into routine visits, and helping to build clinical teams’ confidence in talking about emotional health. They also address the stress and trauma that have been experienced by some patients who come from communities that have historically been socially or economically disadvantaged.
“We can build trust by listening, by normalizing, by asking and by validating families’ emotional health concerns,” says Lori Crosby, PsyD, a Cincinnati Children’s and Roadmap pediatric psychologist.
The Roadmap for Emotional Health Project offers a vision of what’s possible when emotional health becomes an integral part of pediatric care. Cincinnati Children’s is proud to contribute to and expand this work, reinforcing our commitment to excellent outcomes for every child and family we serve.
