Patrick Gardner

On January 8th, Lincoln Child Center in Oakland, Calif., hosted a mental health policy forum aimed at developing state and federal legislative proposals for improving mental health services for families and youth in California.

Recent articles by The Imprint have described a long-standing problem wherein many children who are removed from their homes due to abuse and neglect are provided inadequate access to mental health care.

After child protective services in California removes a child from his home for abuse or neglect, his care becomes the responsibility of the county that removed him. Every child entering the system is assigned a social worker, who bears the tremendous burden of...

Heather, slight and precocious, made her Los Angeles County high school’s track team as a freshman. It was a major feat, something to be proud of in the maelstrom of the 14 year-old’s life. Only months before, the county’s Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) had removed Heather

Proposed legislation, and the prospect of yet another class-action lawsuit against the state, may press lawmakers to resolve the issues preventing kids placed in out-of-county foster homes from getting needed mental health treatment.

Pending DOF Decision Regarding EPSDT Allocation Formula Will Significantly Affect Access to Mental Health Services for Low-income Youth in California Last month, we at Young Minds Advocacy Project shared highlights from the California Senate Budget Subcommittee’s hearing on proposed changes to the methodology used to allocate 2011 Realignment Behavioral Health Growth funding to county mental health programs.

According to the most recent numbers (July 2014) shared by the California Child Welfare Indicators Project (CCWIP) at UC Berkeley, almost one in five California foster youth (13,147 out of 66,604) were sent to placements (a foster home, group home, etc.)

Last Friday, a handful of California lawmakers, experts in children’s mental health and advocates assembled at West Oakland’s Lincoln Child Center for a forum on children’s mental health policy. The gathering, which packed Lincoln’s auditorium, was more a chance to publicly address children’s mental health issues than commence on substantive changes.

In a recent move by California health care officials, the California Health and Human Services Agency and the Department of Healthcare Services both confirmed California will be reimbursing counties that overspend their allocations for Early Periodic Screening Diagnosis and Treatment (EPSDT) mental health services through the use of 2011 realignment growth funds, which are funds accrued from the Behavioral Health Subaccount.