Increasing Effective Mental Health Care for LGBT Clients

Mental health organizations will be randomized to two study groups. Within each organization, clinicians will be recruited. Within clinician practices, clients will be recruited. Baseline data will be collected from the two groups of mental health organization leads, clinicians, and clients. Both groups will undergo data collection with 5 tools by research teams: at the organization level the Organizational Climate Assessment and at the clinician level the Provide Self-Assessment during month 1 of each site's participation. Client level Client Satisfaction Survey data will also be collected during month 1 of each site's participation (cohort 1 clients). During months 2-4 of each site's participation, clinicians in the control group will receive standard nationally, publicly freely accessible information, specifically a letter notifying them about the on-line accessible SAMHSA LGBT services education manual and Fenway Health Webinars. In the intervention group, clinicians will also receive a letter notifying them about the nationally, publicly freely accessible on-line SAMHSA education manual and Fenway Health Webinars plus they will receive a 1-day, clinician training followed by 4 biweekly 2-hour technical assistance workshops to review and address information gleaned from the 5 tool's and to finalize the problem-solving related to needs for change based on the 5 tool's. During month 5 of each site's participation, both groups will undergo follow-up data collection and assessment by research teams at the organization and clinician levels. Client level data will also be collected during month 5 of each site's participation (cohort 2 clients). Finally, during month 6 of each site's participation, each site's 5 clinicians in both study arms will complete one first-time consultation session by screen-to-screen interaction via on-line computer interface with a LGBT standardized patient so that their objective skill-level performance can be assessed.