New Video Highlights the Delta Center’s Legacy of Collaboration and Equity

Deborah Riddick, founder of Alternate Frame and Delta Center coach, speaks during a recent Delta Center convening. 

“We were more like neighbors that waved across the fence at each other, and now we’re really doing the work together. And that’s a result of the Delta Center,” says Lou Carmichael, CEO of Variety Care, in a new video about the impact of the Delta Center for a Thriving Safety Net. Representing the Oklahoma Behavioral Health Association at the initiative’s final meeting in March, she described how participating in the initiative strengthened its relationship with the Oklahoma Primary Care Association. Oklahoma is one of 19 states that participated in the seven-year initiative.

The Delta Center began in 2018 with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It convened state primary care and behavioral health associations to advance policy and practice change. The ultimate goal of the Delta Center is to cultivate health policy and a care system that is more equitable and better meets the needs of individuals and families. Grantees used their Delta Center funding for an array of activities, including research, education, training, stakeholder engagement and convening, and building shared policy agendas. The second and final cohort of six grantee teams ended in July.

Led by JSI, the Delta Center team also included partners from the National Center for Mental Wellbeing, the National Association of Community Health Centers, and the Center for Accelerating Care Transformation. In the video, Transforming Care through Collaboration: The Delta Center Story, grantees speak about their experiences and lessons learned.

“Some of our health centers thought that the behavioral health centers were made of money…that they had all of these sources of revenue and they could do whatever they wanted… It’s kind of looking at the other folks and saying, ‘oh, they’ve got it easy’ and not recognizing the challenges that they face,” says Scott Anglemyer, policy director, Community Care Network of Kansas.

Grantees also celebrated policy successes and practice changes resulting from the collaborations between state primary care and behavioral health associations. Many of them worked to advance telehealth in their states during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We saw telehealth [gain traction] after years and years of interest but never getting across the line politically. Yes it was partly because there was a crisis at hand, but it was also that there were players in place that were able to act quickly, to say we need this now because we need care,” says Rachel Tobey, Delta Center project director.

In the months after George Floyd was murdered in 2021 and racial justice protests popped up across the country, grantees focused on centering consumer voice and advancing health and racial equity. The Delta Center team organized presentations, prompted conversations, and added several resources to the grantees’ toolbox to support their pursuit for equity.

“That’s one of the most important things that we got from the Delta Center—the amount of training and technical assistance in the area of health equity,” says Jim Zibailo, director of Community Health Systems at the New Hampshire Primary Care Association.

This first video highlights the overall impact of the Delta Center among participating state associations. Forthcoming videos will spotlight each state grantee team. Stay tuned this fall for a two-part series demonstrating how the Alaska grantee team used Delta Center lessons on advocacy to support the state’s behavioral health care workforce.