Western Oregon University

Project Abstract

Advisory Board

Interagency Workgroup

Contact Us

State Action Plan

Triple-A Manual

Project Home

TRI Eugene

Project Description

Oregon is participating in the federal Traumatic Brain Injury Program, coordinated by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB), within the Health Resources and Services Administration.  Since the TBI Act was passed 10 years ago, the MCHB TBI program has provided funding to nearly every state, with the broad charge of “increasing access to services for individuals with TBI and their families.”

Oregon's involvement began in 1997 with a planning grant from the MCHB. Since then, a demonstration grant and three post-demonstration grants have been awarded to Oregon. The current grant from MCHB builds on past accomplishments and aims to expand and integrate those successes regionally as well as at the state level. The proposal outlined the three goals for Oregon.

Goal 1:   To increase inter-agency collaboration among state agencies that serve individuals with brain injury

Although systems are in place to evaluate, place, and assist people with any disability, most state agencies have limited understanding of individuals with TBI. A critical goal of the project is to revive the work of the Governor’s Task Force to build a state-level infrastructure for coordinated brain injury services in Oregon.  To that end, we will create an inter-agency work group that focuses on increasing collaboration in TBI service provision.

The following steps were suggested to the Advisory Board at their first meeting.

• Identify relevant agencies to participate in the inter-agency work group
• Invite appropriate representatives from those agencies
• Establish leadership for the group
• Identify current processes for individuals with BI
• Identify initiatives or examples of interagency collaboration
• Determine an acceptable way of enhancing collaboration among agencies to better serve individuals with BI
• Create a document that outlines intended collaboration
• Create an action plan for dissemination throughout agencies and the public
• Plan evaluation of effectiveness of interagency collaboration

Goal 2:   Establish a Regional Collaborative Team to increase awareness of BI and build capacity of local and regional agencies to serve individuals with BI

For Goal 2, we will modify the TBI Educational Consulting Team model to meet the training, support and consultation needs of social service agency personnel who work with individuals with TBI across the age span. We plan to recruit and provide training and support to a cadre of local service providers, who in turn can offer consultation and training in their community to other service providers.  Specific activities include: 

• Identify and train 7 individuals to serve on the Regional Collaborative Team (RCT)
• Assist the RCT in developing an action plan for improving access to resources and services for persons with TBI within the chosen region
• Link RCT to best practices and resources through quarterly contact with the Oregon Brain Injury Resource Network (OBIRN).

We anticipate taking advantage of planned regional training opportunities through the Oregon Department of Education (ODE), while expanding on them with sessions relevant to providing service to adults. This is similar to, but more ambitious than previous collaborations.

We plan to implement the RCT model in one region (as defined by the ODE) for the first year, then expanding to two or more regions in Years 2 and 3 of the project.  In addition, we will use OBIRN to present best-practices in brain injury services to the RCT as appropriate.

Goal 3:    To build linkages between Regional Collaborative Team members and state agency personnel who serve people with BI

When large systems (such as state agencies) make changes to policies or rules, implementing those changes at the local level can sometimes present challenges. We hope to reduce those challenges by providing a conduit between the two entities. By communicating with regional as well as state level representatives as important changes are made, we hope to speed the improvements to the system. 

Our plan for accomplishing Goal 3 is built upon interaction of the RCT and the inter-agency workgroup (see Goal 1). Representatives from the RCT will attend quarterly inter-agency workgroup meetings. They will provide an update on RCT activities and will also present a case history of one individual with TBI from the region. The case example will illustrate obstacles to accessing services that are experienced by individuals with TBI. The workgroup will use the case examples to (a) identify opportunities for streamlining access to services, (b) increase inter-agency collaboration, (c) eliminate overlap, and (d) need to provide services to fill in existing gaps.

In this way the work of the DHS state inter-agency workgroup will be informed by the specific needs of clients of the participating agencies. In addition, the extent to which the workgroup reforms are successful will be judged by the degree to which they improve access to services throughout the state.