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Child-Level Metric Focused on Issue-Focused Interventions Addressing Young Children’s Social Emotional Health: Starting in 2025 Included in the CCO Incentive Metric Set.

Home » Current Projects » Child-Level Metric Focused on Issue-Focused Interventions Addressing Young Children’s Social Emotional Health: Starting in 2025 Included in the CCO Incentive Metric Set.

CURRENT PROJECT

Development and Measure Stewardship of the First-in-the-Nation Child-Level CCO Incentive Metric Focused on Social-Emotional Issue Focused Interventions/Treatments for Young Children

OPIP developed a child-level metric to measure and incentivize improvements in children’s receipt of clinically recommended behavioral health services delivered by CCO-contracted providers. The metric focuses on addressing identified social-emotional needs. To align with the original intent and vision – shaped by feedback from parents, providers, and health system leaders – and informed by lessons learned from implementing the System-Level Social-Emotional Health Metric, the child-level metric emphasizes issue-focused interventions and treatment services. These services may be delivered across a range of CCO-contracted settings to support the CCO’s responsibility to provide recommended behavioral health care.

  • The metric has been in the CCO Incentive Metric set since 2025 and is currently endorsed for inclusion through 2027.
  • Specifications: The metric specifications are here.
  • March 2024: First Educational Webinar: To view webinar about the metric and hear from the OPIP parent advisors: March 2024 Social Emotional Health Educational Webinar Recording. OPIP’s March 2024 Presentation to Metrics and Scoring is here. An update on the metric in 2025 is provided here.
  • Updates to the Metric – March 2026: OPIP’s Updated Educational Webinar is provided here, with materials listed below. This metric is part of the Upstream Metrics considered by Metrics and Scoring. Included in the materials below is an overview memo on how the metric meets the Upstream criteria:
  • An Overview of the Metric for Primary Care Providers can be found here.
  • An Overview of the Metric for Integrated Behavioral Health can be found here.
  • An Overview of the Metric for Coordinated Care Organizations can be found here.

Community Input & Support: The metric was developed with extensive community input from more than 160 individuals, including parents of young children enrolled in CCOs, parent advocacy organizations, primary care and behavioral health providers, and health system leaders. Three parents with lived experience served as paid advisors during metric development. Below are key summary documents about the community:

  • Community Engagement Visual on CCO Incentive Metrics Related to Young Children’s Social-Emotional Health from Conceptualization to Development to Implementation: here
  • Community Engagement Memo: here

Public Comments of Support:

  • The metric has received unprecedented public support from OHP members and front-line health care providers, with more than 73 public comments submitted in favor of its inclusion during Metrics and Scoring meetings between May 2024 and July 2026. Notably, at the May 2024 meeting alone, ten parents of young children enrolled in CCOs shared public comments supporting the metric based on their lived experience accessing social-emotional services.
  • OPIP created the following video of the oral public comments of support for the Child-Level Social Emotional Health Metric.
  • OPIP developed the following documents compiling written public comments in support of the Child-Level Social Emotional Health Metric that were submitted to the Oregon Health Authority’s Metric and Scoring Committee:
  • At the July 2026 Metrics and Scoring meeting the metric was confirmed for inclusion in the 2027 CCO Incentive Metric set.

OPIP Community Engagement to Inform the Development on the Benchmarks and Improvement Floor

OPIP held input sessions in August-September 2025 to inform the 9/20/25 presentation to the Metrics and Scoring Committee on recommendations and considerations for improvement benchmarks for this unique metric. In alignment with OPIP’s commitment to ensure that all aspects of the measure development and implementation are community informed, the input sessions were held to obtain community feedback on OPIP’s draft recommendations and considerations for improvement benchmarks.

Here is the presentation that OPIP made to the Metrics and Scoring Committee about our benchmark recommendations. The committee unanimously voted to set the benchmark at 11%, with an improvement floor of 5%. This penultimate decision will be finalized at the October 2024 Metrics and Scoring Committee.

  • Key Activities in 2025: OPIP hosted a webinar on February 20th, 2025, about the new 2025 Coordinated Care Organization Incentive Metric Focused on Young Children Receiving Social-Emotional Issue-Focused Intervention/Treatment Services. More information on this can be found here.
  • On May 16, 2025, OPIP presented to Metrics and Scoring on the development and context of the metric. The presentation covered the definition of upstream behavioral health, disparities in care and the importance of early trauma intervention, clinical recommendations for issue-focused interventions aligned with EPSDT, and public comments from individuals with lived experience.
  • In October 2025, the 2026 Benchmark was set at 12.0% with a 0.5% floor.
  • On November 20, 2025, OPIP presented to the OHA Technical Advisory Group on the intent and purpose of the metric, with a deeper discussion of the role of primary care in connecting children to services or internally providing them through integrated behavioral health or other staffing with behavioral expertise. This included opportunities to deliver services within primary care practice sites and the role of primary care providers in early identification and connection to services.
  • OPIP meets periodically with OHA to review data, consider factors identified through community engagement, and discuss questions raised by CCOs and other providers. It is important to note that OPIP does not receive funding from OHA to support its measure stewardship role and is not contracted to provide technical assistance.

We are grateful to The Ford Family Foundation for financially supporting OPIP in developing this critical measure and for assisting with targeted outreach and communication strategies in rural communities. 

Overview of Funder:
This work is supported by The Ford Family Foundation. The Ford Family Foundation was established in 1957 by Kenneth W. and Hallie E. Ford. Its mission is “successful citizens and vital rural communities” in Oregon and Siskiyou County, California. The Foundation is located in Roseburg, Oregon, with a Scholarship office in Eugene.