Position: Support
Summary: Reauthorizes and extends the Child Mental Health Treatment Act with major changes to it. It renames the act ‘Children and Youth Mental Health Treatment Act’ and seeks to assist children and youth with mental health needs and their families. The notable changes are:
- Ensuring that child welfare (unless warranted) is not involved in a case with a child who is non-medicaid eligible and is receiving mental health services. And ensuring that these kids have a full range of mental health treatment services, including residential treatment, available to them
- A mental health agency will use a standardized risk stratification tool when evaluating a child for mental health treatment, which will be determined by the state department. The mental health agency will be required (after evaluation) to provide the parent/guardian a comprehensive list of potential treatment providers.
- Also works to make the appeal process clearer for families and the resources they have available to them in that process
- Casting a wider net of behavioral health service providers when defining ‘mental health agency’
- Update and clarify reporting requirements for HCPF and mental health agencies that provide services to the youths (like the number of children who are at risk of out-of-home placement, demographic info, outcomes of treatment for children served, funding totals for residential services and community-based care, etc)
- Dept of Human Services must maintain & update a list of providers on its website and post info from various reports required by this bill (excluding personal health info)
- Revise membership of the advisory board – members representing a wide array of areas/fields from nonprofit health care facilities to representing individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.