We know that children in our state have unmet mental health needs and a specific goal of the initiative is to help children.
The initiative is drafted so that it will fit right into existing Welfare and Institutions Code provisions regarding mental health, so it’s difficult to just read it and figure out what it will do for children. One must be familiar with the entire code relating to mental health to be able to read the initiative and figure out what it does and how it works. I’ll explain.
The Welfare and Institutions Code establishes a system of community mental health services, including an adults’ and a children’s system of care, for mental health services. These systems of care are funded by the Local Revenue Fund, which is money from sales tax and vehicle license fee revenues that goes to counties. Counties that receive money from the Local Revenue Fund for the purpose of providing mental health services are required to provide these services to children ONLY to the extent that funds are available.
Unfortunately, adequate funds are not available to serve all of the people who need mental health services. Therefore, under our present system, children receiving full-scope Medi-Cal are eligible to receive all mental health services that are medically necessary. Children who have insurance are eligible to receive mental health services under their plans. But children who are uninsured or underinsured and who do not qualify for Medi-Cal do not get services unless their parents can pay out of pocket.
For those children, however, services are available, at no cost to their parents, farther down the line. Those children qualify to receive mental health services under different funding streams if they enter the foster care system, enter the juvenile justice system, or are diagnosed as severely emotionally disturbed and receive services from the county through their schools under the AB 3632 program.
This is where the initiative comes in. The initiative will provide a dedicated funding stream to supplement the children’s system of care that is now so inadequately funded, making mental health services available to children who need them, regardless of whether these children have adequate insurance to pay for those services or qualify for Medi-Cal.
And, more importantly, the initiative will fund services for these children well BEFORE they qualify for services through the foster care system, the juvenile justice system, or the school system. The initiative will close the gaps.
Click on the text of the initiative, and take a look at Section 5892 toward the end. It states that about 50% of the money raised by the initiative (approximately $600 million a year) will be divided between the adults’ and children's systems of care. Children's programs will be receiving a lot of money under this initiative and that was one of our purposes in writing this initiative.
We want to ensure that prevention and early intervention services are available to children to treat mental illnesses early, and to prevent those mental illnesses from becoming severe and disabling and requiring, or leading to, out-of-home treatment.
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