The 8Ss: A Tool to Facilitate an Interprofessional Tele-education Model Addressing the Early Childhood Behavioral Health Provider Shortage

The COVID-19 pandemic illuminated the crisis in children’s mental health. The authors initially conducted virtual clinics using an Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO^®) model of tele-education to support medical professionals in early childhood mental, emotional, developmental, and behavioral (MEDB) care. Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Network for Early Childhood Tele-Education (KKI-NECT) expanded to include early childhood education and mental health professionals in addition to medical professionals. This commentary will describe a tool developed to create a successful model of interprofessional training and consultation. The tertiary-care-centered multidisciplinary ECHO team conducted virtual clinics with anonymous case presentation, discussion, and brief didactics to guide the practice of interprofessional participants. Case presentation required adaptations due to non-medical participants’ unfamiliarity with the medical paradigm. The 5Ss, a communication tool originally developed for child psychiatry access programs, was expanded to the 8Ss tool and used for case discussion and presentation. Interprofessional expansion necessitated the creation of a tool to improve efficiency of case presentation. Unpublished data from the first two interprofessional cohorts showed a statistically significant improvement in respondents’ self-report of confidence in providing local expertise within their professional circles. Participants reported feeling less isolated and better informed in the care of young children. The 8Ss tool provides a way to overcome barriers in communication between medical and non-medical early childhood professionals by providing a common structure for all participants. This improved communication and contributed to the establishment an ongoing interprofessional learning community.