Mountain Plains Mental Health Technology Transfer Center

The Mountain Plains Mental Health Technology Transfer Center (MP-MHTTC) provides comprehensive training, resources and technical assistance to mental health providers and other practitioners in Region 8, covering the states of Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.

The MP-MHTTC team develops new and identifies existing resources which are disseminated and easily accessible across the region and the MHTTC network. The team also builds and maintains strong collaborative relationships with key stakeholders in the region and nationally.

Our Goals

• Accelerate the adoption and implementation of mental health related evidence-based practice throughout Region 8.
• Heighten the awareness, knowledge, and skills of the Region 8 workforce that addresses the needs of individuals living with mental illness.
• Foster regional and national alliances among culturally diverse practitioners, researchers, policy makers, family members, and consumers of mental health services.
• Ensure the availability and delivery of free-of-charge training and technical assistance to the mental health field, including CMHS grant recipients in Region 8.

Services We Offer

The MP-MHTTC offers training and technical assistance to the public mental health workforce, inclusive of areas of pre-professional, post graduate, and continuing preparation. The Center serves Region 8, which includes the states of Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.

The primary focus of MP-MHTTC is to provide training and technical assistance to mental health service providers serving persons with mental health disorders, especially those with serious mental illness or a serious emotional disturbance. Particular attention is given to serving providers with limited access to service delivery systems.

Anticipated trainings and technical assistance include topics such as:

• Suicide Prevention
• Assertive Community Treatment
• Assisted Outpatient Treatment
• Recovery Oriented Systems of Care
• Psychiatric Advance Directives
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
• Crisis De-escalation

Materials including multi-media training packages are identified, developed, and disseminated across the six states. A thirty-person advisory board, with a majority of members with lived experience, guide the activities of the MP-MHTTC team.

Who Is Involved

Faculty from the University of North Dakota (UND), program staff from the Behavioral Health Program at the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education (WICHE), and staff at the Center for the Application for Substance Abuse Treatment (CASAT) at the University of Nevada-Reno.

• Thomasine Heitkamp, Principal Investigator & Project Director (Professor at UND; PI and Co-Director of the MP-ATTC in Region 8)
• Dennis Mohatt, Co-Project Director (Vice-President of Behavioral Health WICHE)
• David Terry, Project Manager (UND)
• Lynette Dickson, Associate Project Director (Associate Director of the Center for Rural Health at UND)
• Maridee Shogren, Technical Trainer (Associate Clinical Professor of Nursing at UND)
• Andrew McLean, Technical Trainer (Chair- UND Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at UND)
• Sarah Nielsen, Technical Trainer (Associate Professor of Occupational Therapy at UND)
• Shawnda Schroeder, web and curriculum manager (Assistant Professor at UND)
• Bethany Rigles, Program Evaluator and Assessment (Research and Technical Assistance Associate at WICHE)
• Elizabeth Tupa, Technical Trainer (Director of Education and Research at WICHE)
• Rebecca Helfand (Program Director at WICHE)
• Nancy Roget, Direct Enhanced Professional Learning Series and Communities of Practice (Co-Director of the MP-ATTC in Region 8; Director of CASAT)

Additional Partners

• Advocates for Human Potential, Inc.
• National Association for Rural Mental Health (NARMH)
• National Rural Health Association (NHRA)
• American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC)
• State Office of Rural Health
  • Colorado
  • South Dakota
  • Utah
  • Wyoming
• Area Health Education Center (AHEC)
  • South Dakota
  • Utah
• Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment, Office of Suicide Prevention
• Maria Monroe-DeVita, University of Washington

How We Measure Our Success

• Increase the number of people in the mental health or related workforce trained in mental health-related practices/activities.
• Increase the number of individuals who have received training in prevention or mental health promotion.
• Increase the number of individuals contacted through program outreach efforts.
• Increase the number of programs, organizations, and communities that implement evidence-based mental health-related practices and activities.

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This work is supported by grant H79SM081726 from the Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.