This Week in the News 9/30-10/4
This Week in the News 9/30 – 10/4
This month, the National Center is highlighting ways to improve access to child welfare competent mental health services across States, Tribal Nations, and territories. Our Intensive Technical Assistance services are designed to support these efforts by offering tailored solutions that address the complexities of these systems. In this week’s news, we’ve gathered key examples of how both State and Federal agencies are leading the way in improving access to these critical services. These stories underscore the multi-faceted strategies required to ensure children and families receive the care they need.
AAP applauds new CMS guidance to improve comprehensive health care for children in Medicaid, CHIP | AAP News | American Academy of Pediatrics The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued new guidance aimed at improving pediatric care, with a particular focus on children with specialized needs such as those with mental health conditions, in foster care, or with disabilities and complex health needs. The guidance outlines key components of a high-functioning care system, including a single point of entry, integrating support for mild to moderate needs within primary care, and ensuring access to a broad range of community-based specialty care. It also emphasizes limiting inpatient mental health treatment to situations where it’s medically necessary. To strengthen the pediatric workforce, CMS recommends strategies like improving compensation to attract providers, expanding provider qualifications, utilizing telehealth, using interprofessional consultations to access specialty providers, and reducing administrative barriers like prior authorizations.
How WA is trying to get kids in mental crisis out of hospitals | The Seattle Times The Seattle Times Mental Health Project is investigating the day and week-long waiting periods children face for vital psychiatric care. This article speaks with Taku Mineshita, a recent hire to a new position that will oversee the agencies responsible for care for children. Mineshita plans to employ cross-system collaboration to simplify the process of accessing services for families and addressing children’s needs before they reach a crisis point.
State Agencies Announce Effort to Support Children with High Acuity Needs The Indiana Gove or has created a Children with High Acuity Needs Project which brings together The Family and Social Services Administration the Department of Correction, the Department of Child Services, and the Department of Education to provide more support to children with high acuity mental and behavioral health needs and keep youth in crisis in the least restrictive setting possible. The four goals of the project are:
- Cross-agency navigators: These will help coordinate care across various services, including education, mental health, child welfare, and juvenile justice, using schools as a hub to prevent institutionalization and help children transition back home from residential settings.
- Support for foster parents and kinship caregivers: Caregivers will receive extra support for caring for children with high needs, including access to respite care.
- Gatekeeper process review: A system to ensure children in the state’s psychiatric hospital network remain in the least restrictive setting and can leave as soon as they are ready, preventing unnecessary extended stays.
- Youth transitional homes and caregiver coaching: Transitional homes will offer short-term support for children leaving residential care to help them reintegrate into their communities, while families receive caregiver coaching to assist with the transition. These homes are designed for short-term use, unlike traditional group homes.
Intensive kids’ mental health treatment program opens north of Salem – Salem Reporter The Meadowlark Program in Salem Oregon was created to meet students’ mental health needs and ensure that they do not fall behind in their education so that they can retu to their home school.
Study reveals impact of adverse childhood experiences on teen mental health (news-medical.net) Another step to improving access to mental health services is to have a better understanding of risk factors so services can be implemented to support children and families earlier. A 15-year University of Michigan study reveals that teens who faced high emotional and multidimensional adversity early in life are at the greatest risk for mental health challenges. Tracking over 4,000 youths from birth to age 15, the study explored how adversities such as maltreatment, family violence, and maternal depression impact mental health and brain function. Key findings include:
- Teens exposed to high adversity across multiple contexts (home, family, neighborhood) show worse mental health outcomes and differences in brain activity related to emotion processing.
- Maternal depression alone can lead to significant negative effects, even when other adversities are moderate.
