The University of Missouri School of Medicine’s Center for Child Well-Being was awarded $6.4 million in funding, with $2.9 million going to Missouri Child Psychiatry Access Project, MO-CPAP, and the other $3.4 million presented to Maternal Health Access Project, MHAP, in October.
The award comes as a part of the $216 million Rural Health Transformation program funds allocated to Missouri in December 2025. Healthcare and other essential workers will also receive a portion of the fund, with an approximate $11 million being set aside to provide proper housing, child care, benefits and workforce retention for those who may qualify.
“This is important because these access lines are our way of building capacity for the providers that are in rural areas where specialty care can be really difficult to access,” said Reshma Khanna, a perinatal psychiatrist and medical director of MHAP. “We can’t put a specialist in every county, but we can give providers access to a specialist in every county across the state.”
Many rural areas are not equipped to deal with specialty maternal healthcare matters, Khanna said. She is optimistic that the funding received could be what lays the groundwork for future projects and innovations that connect all of Missouri together.
Laine Young-Walker, a child psychiatrist and the Principle Investigator of MO-CPAP, said there are a few ways that rural areas of Missouri can get support.
“One is telephone consultation. So a provider calls in and says, ‘I need to speak with a child psychiatrist about a patient,’ and we set up a call. The other is linkage and referral,” Young-Walker said.
For example, if someone needs a service like a trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, they can call the line and get contact information to link them to that service, she said.
The other is education and training. “So we have webinars and different opportunities for people to watch,” Young-Walker added.
“Then the fourth is support coordination, and that’s where a support coordinator will follow up with a family who has been served through their provider to make sure that they got that trauma-focused CBT,” she said.
The timeline for use of the funds is still being developed. The groups say they have set goals for how they plan to use the funds for the first one-, three- and five-year allotments.
Khanna emphasized the long-term impact the funding can have on women’s health and access to care.
“We’re investing in the well-being of families for generations to follow,” Khanna said. “If you can provide a mother the right support in a timely way during pregnancy or during the postpartum period, you’re not just empowering her to support her own health and future, but by extension you are also empowering her to support her child’s health and her child’s future.”
“And if you can do that, you can break cycles of unrecognized or untreated health needs for her child and potentially generations after that as well, and I think that’s really powerful,” she added.
