Implementation and Evaluation of a Military–Civilian Partnership to Train Mental Health Specialists

Abstract

Introduction Mental health specialists (MHS, or 68X) play a central role in meeting the growing demand for combat stress care among Service Members. Partnering with civilian institutions may enhance the MHS training experience beyond Advanced Individual Training (AIT). Methods We describe a novel military–civilian collaboration to train U.S. Army Reserve MHS’s in the psychiatric emergency service (PES) of a public, safety-net hospital. Details of implementation are described. The training rotation was evaluated after 1 year through a comprehensive chart abstraction of patients seen as well as surveys of MHS’s and civilian partners. Results The roles of MHS and physician officers in this rotation are described. Over 9 days in the PES, the MHS team evaluated 26 patients. MHS’s described a high-quality training environment (83% rated very good or excellent) in which they frequently saw high-risk patients relevant to military practice. Experience with a certain patient presentation was correlated with comfort assessing and managing that presentation (p < 0.01). Many civilian staff (40%) felt the PES operated better with the presence of the Army team and 50% of civilians agreed their impression of the U.S. Army Reserve improved as a result of the partnership. Hundred percent of specialists and 80% of civilians reported very good to excellent rapport between military and civilian staff. Two civilian respondents (11%) expressed concern that the military team’s presence impeded patient care. Conclusion This is the first military–civilian training collaboration for behavioral health specialists, who have already completed AIT. This program provided well-received and mission-relevant training for MHS’s without notable adverse effects on patient care or team functioning in a civilian environment. Our findings are based on a small sample size, and no other such programs exist against which to compare these results. We propose that such educational partnerships, which have long been effective for other clinical specialists, may benefit the military, civilian communities, and the country.

Civilian-Military Collaboration before and during COVID-19 Pandemic—A Systematic Review and a Pilot Survey among Practitioners

“…Although educational initiatives and training courses-besides other types of planning programs-are associated with a cost [60], they enable a multiagency collaboration that encompasses all agencies and not only, CM. These initiatives clarify the roles, increase the skills, and pave the way for achieving an established goal, individually and as a team [8,55,61]. Additionally, they may prompt agencies, especially CM, closer to creating one organization with responsibility for the development of all involved entities and in an all-risk scenario pattern [36,48,62], demonstrating practical, financial, and political advantages of such collaboration [44,63].…”

Cross-training Social Workers to Work in a Psychiatric Emergency Service during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…As the cross-training course was undertaken so quickly, the course evaluation utilized self-assessment instruments developed for a prior multidisciplinary training effort [9]. Using a secure web-based survey platform [10], participants were sent a pre-course survey to assess their comfort with a variety of clinical scenarios typically encountered in the PES.…”