61.2 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO (UCSF) HEALTH AND HUMAN RIGHTS INITIATIVE: ESTABLISHING A NETWORK OF PEDIATRIC PROVIDERS OF PSYCHIATRIC ASYLUM EVALUATIONS

Abstract

This talk will present on the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Health and Human Rights Initiative (HHRI), a multidisciplinary hub that works to uphold justice and equity for immigrant families through support for their medical, behavioral, legal, and social needs. The HHRI has created a network of asylum providers across the UCSF campus and health system, including a county public hospital, 2 children’s hospitals, the School of Medicine, and our main medical center. The presentation will focus on the development of our pediatric asylum network of providers and the challenges when attempting to adapt our adult network model to one that is more child- and family-friendly. We will provide case examples of both successes with our model, as well as challenges we had to overcome. Additionally, we will provide details on establishing quality control of evaluations throughout our network, by discussing our training model. The presentation will provide participants with 1 model for establishing a network of providers of pediatric mental health asylum evaluations. Three key points will be provided to participants of exemplary practices in the delivery of pediatric mental health asylum evaluations. With the change in the US administration leading to more relaxed immigration policies, we expect an influx of families who will be seeking asylum at our US border. Because previous years have included large waves of unaccompanied minors and family units with young children, we expect the need for pediatric mental health asylum evaluations to increase exponentially over the next 4 years. Therefore, we provide a blueprint for behavioral health providers to begin developing their own networks and expertise in their respective home institutions.