Monitor - October 2016

the oil spill. Many of those parents also developed addiction problems. “I’ve never seen parental drug use like this; it is an epidemic in this community,” she says.

But Callahan is helping to enhance the lives of these children. She meets quarterly with a local elementary school psychologist and pediatrician to identify any additional services Head Start children may need as they transition to elementary school.

Teacher-parent relationships are also improving, thanks to a workshop series Callahan presented to teachers on how subtle changes in their communication style—like leading with praise—can make parents more receptive to teachers’ suggestions for changes at home that can improve learning at school.

“It’s wonderful to see what happens when teachers start conversations with ‘Let me tell you two great things Billy did today,’” Callahan says.

DAVID COSIO

GIVING PATIENTS CHOICE
IN THEIR PAIN CARE

People living with chronic pain fare better when they have access to an interprofessional approach
to treatment, research shows. As a psy-
chologist working with veterans, David
Cosio, PhD, worried that his patients
didn’t know about all the pain treatments
they could try or how they worked. That
led to an idea: Why not teach patients
about available treatments and let them
choose which they want to pursue?

After gaining support from other health-care providers at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center in Chicago, Cosio launched the hospital’s Pain Education School in 2009, a year after finishing his studies in clinical psychology at Ohio University. Under the one-of-a-kind program, veterans and their families can attend weekly classes introducing 23 different pain care interventions that the Department of Veterans Affairs or its community partners offer, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, sleep hygiene, medication management, physical therapy, nutrition and biofeedback.

“A lot of pain management is
self-management. I’d rather patients use
their energy or time toward something
they care about and are going to be con-
sistent with,” he says. “We’re empowering
them with the knowledge and support to
do these things.”
His preliminary data suggest that
veterans who participated in the classes
experienced less pain and fewer symp-
toms of depression, had learned more
about how to cope with their pain, and
were more likely to participate in their
own treatments.

The program is beginning to have a broad impact. Physicians and other providers say that the program has also helped them learn about alternative pain treatments. Two veterans’ outpatient clinics are also using the program via videoconferencing, and Cosio is talking with other VA hospitals across the nation interested in adopting it.