In 2023, the Behavioral Health Improvement Institute at Keene State College (BHII) partnered with Granite United Way on the Child Care Business and Employer Partnership Project (CCBEPP), a NH Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS)-funded initiative to design, implement, and assess five statewide pilot projects aimed at making child care more equitable and affordable for New Hampshire employers and employees.

“It’s all about the buy-in.” “We need stronger buy-in.” “We just don’t have the buy-in.” If you work in a school, community mental health agency, or any organization implementing behavioral health interventions in a complex environment, you’ve likely heard one or all of these phrases. In my experience as a program evaluator, these comments surface most often when an initiative isn’t being implemented as intended, when outcomes lag, enthusiasm fades, or a promising initiativ

The Behavioral Health Improvement Institute serves as the external evaluator for a local NH school district’s school violence prevention efforts, supported by a federal grant to develop school threat assessment teams and implement the Comprehensive School Violence Threat Assessment Guidelines (CSTAG) developed out of the University of Virginia. CSTAG is a nationally recognized, evidence-based, and multidisciplinary framework for assessing student threats of violence in K-12 s

As a data analyst in the school portfolio at BHII, much of my role focuses on turning information into usable insights while also examining how our data workflows can be made more efficient and accessible. One area our team recently identified for improvement is our process for collecting and monitoring fidelity assessment data related to implementation of New Hampshire’s Multi-Tiered System of Support for Behavioral Health and Wellness (MTSS-B) across school districts.

Over three years, the Behavioral Health Improvement Institute assessed 15 evidence-based and promising practices [1] serving children and families through New Hampshire's publicly funded mental health system. What we learned offers valuable insights for behavioral health systems nationwide. 

Among the lofty promises of connecting data systems are faster response times, deeper insights into connected information, and a farewell to duplicate data entry. Alluring as these rewards may be, many attempts to integrate data systems fall far short of their ambition. In this post we’ll share a data integration success story and extract from it the ingredients you’ll need to get your databases talking.

Each year, the Behavioral Health Improvement Institute conducts a field-wide assessment to examine the progress of key sectors across New Hampshire. The report is commissioned by the Endowment for Health and reflects BHII’s approach to applied research that centers practitioner perspectives while producing structured, decision-relevant insights.