The Ukraine ECHO Project (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) began in November 2020 in Ivano-Frankivsk as a partnership between University of New Mexico, the Health Sciences Center and Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University. The aim of the project is to improve patient care in order to increase the competence of specialists in the field of mental health of children and adolescents. This cooperation is aimed at forming a Ukrainian-American team within the ECHO® Project, creating a training program at the university for practitioners working with autism spectrum disorders and behavioral disorders.
In monthly Zoom video conferences, a team of experts from the United States and Ukraine discuss and supervise a case study, after which all participants have the opportunity to receive new didactic information from one of the Project experts.
Participants of such supervisory conferences form an interdisciplinary team that includes psychologists, educators, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, pediatricians, pediatric neurologists, speech therapists, assistant teachers in inclusive classes, and more. The topics of case studies and didactics allow us to comprehensively analyze the problems of autism and behavioral disorders in children and adolescents, and find ways on how to give the most effective help together. Each monthly ECHO conference is an opportunity for both cultural and professional interaction, which greatly contributes to the development of professional competence of professionals.