Integrated School-Based Behavioral Health Partnership Program.
Existing law requires the governing board of any school district to give diligent care to the health and physical development of pupils and authorizes the governing board of a school district to employ properly certified persons for the work.
The School-based Early Mental Health Intervention and Prevention Services for Children Act of 1991 authorizes the Director of Health Care Services, in consultation with the Superintendent of Public Instruction, to award matching grants to local educational agencies to pay the state share of the costs of providing school-based early mental health intervention and prevention services to eligible pupils at schoolsites of eligible pupils, subject to the availability of funding each year. Existing law establishes the Mental Health Student Services Act as a mental health partnership competitive grant program for the purpose of establishing mental health partnerships between a county’s mental health or behavioral health departments and school districts, charter schools, and the county office of education within the county, as provided.
This bill would establish the Integrated School-Based Behavioral Health Partnership Program to provide prevention and early intervention for, and access to, behavioral health services for pupils. The bill would authorize a county behavioral health agency and the governing board or governing body of a local educational agency to agree to collaborate on and implement an integrated school-based behavioral health partnership program, to develop a memorandum of understanding outlining the requirements for the partnership program, and to enter into a contract for mental health or substance use disorder services.
As part of a partnership program, the bill would require a county behavioral health agency to provide, through its own staff or through its network of contracted community-based organizations, one or more behavioral health professionals that meet specified contract, licensing, and supervision requirements to serve pupils with serious emotional disturbances or substance use disorders, or who are at risk of developing a serious behavioral health condition. The bill would require a local educational agency to provide school-based locations, including space at schools, appropriate for the delivery of behavioral health services, and would additionally authorize these services to be provided through telehealth or through appropriate referral. The bill would establish processes for delivering services and would specify the types of services that may be provided pursuant to the partnership program. The bill would require the local educational agency and county behavioral health agency to develop a process related to serving pupils with private insurance, including a process to seek reimbursement from private insurers for behavioral health services provided to a pupil.
The bill would require the partnership program to annually report specified information to the State Department of Health Care Services and the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission, and would require the commission, in collaboration with the department, to report that information to the Legislature every three years, as specified.