It Takes a Team: Integrating Behavioral Health into Primary Care Settings

Take a realistic look at the collaborative care teams in which social workers are often involved. With many primary care settings now focusing on the holistic needs of patients, integrated behavioral healthcare has become more common. Learn how to address patients’ needs more thoroughly from a team approach, providing coordinated care of physical, mental health, and substance abuse needs.

As the “person in environment” approach is a signature of the social work field, social workers fit naturally into integrated behavioral healthcare. The important roles social workers play as part of multidisciplinary teams enables their patients to access services more seamlessly.

In this video you’ll watch Ana Gomez, a second year MSW intern, as she handles a new case and coordinates care with her colleagues. Ana meets Jess, a client who is seeking help for her diabetes, when it becomes apparent to the various professionals at the medical office that Jess would benefit from more services than just diabetes management. A team forms to provide Jess with coordinated care, and Ana plays a key role in the team, illustrating the importance of social workers in integrated healthcare.

It Takes a Team reminds clinicians that integrated healthcare aims to treat the entire person. It focuses on both physical and mental recovery, valuing the involvement of the client in each decision. In this way, the video illustrates the very foundation of the social work philosophy: meeting a client where he or she is and approaching all cases from the person in environment perspective.