By Alex Briscoe, California Children's Trust, January 23, 2020
Since mid 2018, with your guidance and support, we have raised awareness and achieved a consensus about the need to address the escalating youth mental health crisis in California. In over 100 presentations across the state, we have made clear our position that solutions to this crisis must be centered on equity and justice and a reimagining of how we fund, define, deliver, and measure the social and emotional health of children and families.
This consensus, alongside a new administration and the strong work of advocates across the state, has yielded a number of system reform proposals across the children’s behavioral health arena in recent months, including several in the Governor’s budget. Essential to all of these proposals is Medicaid reform.
Most of you are likely familiar now with The Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) reform agenda through the Medi-Cal Healthier California for All (formerly CalAIM). This proposal is both massive and moving at a very fast pace.
The Trust initially released its analysis of Medi-Cal Healthier California for All proposal in November, which has been viewed and forwarded more than 5,000 times. An extraordinary level of engagement indicating the relevance of our coalition perspective.
Since that initial analysis, in partnership with other advocates, we have submitted five letters to relay important feedback regarding proposal components including payment reform and medical necessity, and invite you to read them:
December 16, 2019, Feedback & Recommendations from the California Children’s Trust
December 16, 2019, California Children’s Trust & Children’s Health Collaborative
December 16, 2019, California Children’s Trust & Educators Collaborative
December 23, 2019, Payment Reform with California Alliance & ACHSA
January 3, 2020, Medical Necessity with California Alliance
And, if you have not yet weighed in, here is a memo from DHCS that outlines their process. We encourage you to help us shape this proposal consistent with our framework for solutions.
The Trust’s framework for solutions simplifies the immense complexity of the issues by focusing on three core strategies: 1) maximize funding; 2) expand access and participation; and 3) reinvent systems.
At the heart and intersection of these three strategies is a commitment to equity and justice, recognizing that without addressing root causes, including structural and systemic racism, we cannot achieve nor sustain or scale our vision of health equity and healthy development for California’s children, youth, and families.
We encourage all members of the coalition, at whatever table you may sit, to look at the current reform landscape in California, including Medi-Cal Healthier California for All, through this framework, and ask:
- Is it maximizing the resources available to address this crisis?
- Is it expanding who gets services, what they get, who provides it, and their agency?
- Is it increasing transparency and accountability across systems?
- Is it centered on equity and justice?
Our advocacy will have more impact if we have consistency in our message across sectors, across organizations, and across initiatives. We invite all our coalition members to use this framework as a guiding advocacy platform at every table.
We are honored to be working with you to reimagine our children’s mental health system to achieve equity and healing and look forward to seizing the many opportunities anticipated in 2020.
Alex Briscoe
alex@cachildrenstrust.org
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