PEARLS Screening Tool Available on NPPC Site

The Center for Youth Wellness is happy to announce the PEARLS tool was approved by the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) and is now available on our website for download and use.

Of course, you don’t have to be a provider in California to use PEARLS. However, as of January 1, DHCS will reimburse Medi-Cal providers $29 per PEARLS screening for children and adults with Medi-Cal coverage. To continue receiving ongoing reimbursement, providers must complete an online 2-hour training by July 2020, which can be found on the ACES Aware website.

For providers outside of California, please contact NPPC for more detailed information about how to use the tool or for training assistance.

About PEARLS

The Pediatric ACEs and Related Life-events Screener (PEARLS) was developed by the Bay Area Research Consortium on Toxic Stress and Health (BARC), a partnership between the Center for Youth Wellness, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, and the Adversity Bio-Core (ABC) Bank at the UCSF School of Medicine and Pharmacy.

There are multiple versions of PEARLS based on the child’s age, including parent/caregiver versions for children and adolescents and teen self-reporting, the primary language needed, and whether the person answering is asked to specify which experience(s) happened or simply share a total number (i.e., “de-identified”).

Questions re: PEARLS?

FAQs on the NPPC site

Article about the tool’s development in PLOS ONE