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. JSI led a national team, including strategic partners from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, the National Association of Community Health Centers, and the Center for Accelerating Care Transformation. The initiative convened state primary care and behavioral health associations to advance policy and practice change, with the ultimate goal of cultivating health policy and a care system that is more equitable and better meets the needs of individuals and families.

“We started with a notion of collaboration between primary care and behavioral health and a confluence of how policy change and practice must work together to improve care for individuals and families,” said Rachel Tobey, director of the Delta Center and JSI Co-Executive Director, Health Services Division. “The idea of the Delta Center was that by bringing together primary care and behavioral health leaders at the state and national levels and giving them space, time, support, and resources to build relationships and work on policy and practice change together, we could create a fertile ground to make these changes, just as a river delta creates fertile ground at the confluence of rivers.”

Grantees used their Delta Center funding for various activities, including research, education, training, stakeholder engagement and convening, and building shared policy agendas. As state associations, Delta Center grantees used other non-Delta Center funding sources when they engaged in lobbying and legislative advocacy to advance policy. The second and final cohort of six grantee teams ended in July.

“A big goal I’ve seen or a big win is that states invite other states to give a talk at their conference or give a lecture, or participate in their webinar. So that space where people can engage with one another has moved past just the convening and has become a hallmark of Delta Center work,” said Corina Pinto, JSI Consultant, who led coaching and curriculum design for the Delta Center.

In the video Transforming Care through Collaboration: The Delta Center Story, grantees speak about their experiences and lessons learned.

“Prior to our participation in the Delta Center, I think there was a collaboration that was going on at the provider level but at the association level that did not exist,” recalls Sara Barry, CEO, Oklahoma Primary Care Association and Interim Director, Primary Care Network of Oklahoma

Grantees also celebrated policy successes and practice changes resulting from the collaborations between state primary care and behavioral health associations that began through their Delta Center efforts but blossomed beyond. For instance, state association leaders recognized that if health equity is a goal, policy change must be part of the solution since policy drives how resources are allocated and used. For example, many state primary care and behavioral health associations were able to pivot quickly to advance telehealth in their states during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, policies changed, and telehealth access for primary care and behavioral health services expanded.

The results we have seen in 19 states over the last 7 years show that this idea of bringing together primary care and behavioral health leaders to advance policy and practice change has proven effective. State grantee teams have been able to do more together than they would have alone,” said Rachel Tobey.

In the months after George Floyd was murdered in 2021 when 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 of 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.

All of the grantees emphasized that the new relationships and collaborations formed as a result of participating in the Delta Center are a huge benefit, as they continue to work together to improve policies and practices.

“You need these relationships because systemic change is not linear. It is iterative, adaptive, and needs to be resilient because you don’t know what kinds of crises are going to come along, whether it’s the COVID-19 pandemic or a change of administration. You need those relationships as a foundation to make that progress together,” said Angel Bourgoin, Delta Center Evaluation Lead, JSI Senior Associate.

This first video highlights the Delta Center’s overall impact among participating state associations. Forthcoming videos will spotlight each state grantee team, including a two-part series demonstrating how the Alaska team worked to remove a policy barrier so behavioral health providers could better serve Alaskans.

Support for this program was provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of RWJF.