Show Me Bright Futures: Community application of the public health approach to children's mental health

Child mental health problems are reaching epidemic levels and have become one of the most costly chronic children's health issues. Twenty percent of children suffer from mental health problems that mildly impair functioning and 10% suffer from moderate to severe impairment. The majority of public mental health dollars are directed towards indicated interventions and are not adequate to meet current or future needs. To reverse this trend, a paradigm shift is required from the current focus on acute individual care to a public health model that emphasizes population-based prevention, promotion and early intervention for all children. In Missouri, through a partnership between the Departments of Health and Senior Services and Mental Health, in addition to other state and community child-serving agencies, the Show Me Bright Futures initiative supports this shift by developing sustainable community infrastructures to implement the public health model and help communities to plan intentionally and strategically for their children's healthy social and emotional development. Through partnership with the University of Missouri, three communities are trained as working groups and given access to "Community Issues Management" (CIM), a web-based collaborative management system designed for local and regional organizations to frame, manage and take action on complex issues. The foundation of this system is a process for framing issues through a wealth of GIS data, and mapping and reporting tools custom built for organizations to better understand how issues impact people and environments.