About Us

Utah Technical Assistance Center for Children's Services

Located:

Social Research Institute, College of Social Work

University of Utah

395 South 1500 East, Rm 119

Salt Lake City, UT 84112

- Click for: Map and Directions-

Contacts:

Kelly Feller, MSW

801-581-4515

Kelly.Feller@socwk.utah.edu

Brad Lundahl, PhD

801-581-4570

Brad.Lundahl@socwk.utah.edu

What is UTACCS?

UTACCS is the Utah Technical Assistance Center for Children’s Services.The Utah State Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health (DSAMH)contracted with the University of Utah, College of Social Work, Social Research Institute (SRI) to develop a Center of Excellence to provide technical assistance to children, adolescents and families dealing with mental health and addictive disorders. Like other technical assistance centers across the country, UTACCS identifies evidence-based practices for mental health and substance abuse treatment for use with children, adolescents and their families. Technical support is provided through linking mental health providers with industry experts, facilitating program and treatment protocol development, and collaborating with stakeholders to improve existing services and develop new programs.

Mission Statement

To link evidence-based practices (EBPs) and programs to systems of care to improve outcomes in child and adolescent behavioral health care.
To facilitate access to, implementation of, and fidelity to evidence-based treatment modalities.
To assist in the transformation of the behavioral health care system of Utah through research, education, training, coaching, advocacy, and policy promotion.

Primary Goal

Develop a statewide technical assistance plan to assist the behavioral health community in improving outcomes.

Core Objectives:

Increase awareness of and access to evidence-based practices (EBPs)
To identify and promote the use of specific evidence based behavioral interventions
Assist communities in selection and implementation of EBPs
To develop partnerships and affiliations with Evidence-Based Practice-Best Practice developers and link EBP/expertise to Mental Health/Substance Abuse (MH/SA) treatment providers
Participate in EBP program and policy development & recommendations

Role

The Center functions in a variety of roles in providing technical assistance to the behavioral health community: Communicator/Disseminator, Educator, Advocate, Broker, Researcher, Collaborator, and Evaluator

Stakeholders

UTACCS was created to support various stakeholders in the behavioral health community. While children, adolescents, families, and providers are the most obvious stakeholders, the following organizations and agencies are both the recipients of and advisors to Center activities and direction.