Code Triage: Integrating the National Children's Disaster Mental Health Concept of Operations Across Health Care Systems

This article describes the National Children's Disaster Mental Health Concept of Operations (“CONOPS”) model as a method to address discrepancies between research advances that have been made and the typical methods of providing mental health services to children after disasters. Three key CONOPS strategies are described: (1) the PsySTART Disaster Mental Health Triage System, (2) a child-focused Incident Action Plan (IAP), and (3) a continuum of risk stepped-care model that matches the level of evidence-based treatment interventions with the level of identified risk using a stepped-care framework. Together, these strategies provide an integrated “disaster systems of care” method for the needs of children. With the goal to strengthen the resilience of children, the CONOPS provides clear operational strategies to facilitate mental health care addressing the full continuum of risk and resilience in the child population. Adapting this tool to health care systems is a vital step to improving mental health services and resilience outcomes for children after a disaster.