Children's Mental Health Campaign: From Advocacy to Policy in Massachusetts

It has been estimated that more than 100,000 of the children and adolescents who need mental health services in Massachusetts do not receive them. Inconsistent mental health policy among state agencies and multiple but separate funding streams have resulted in a fragmented delivery system that is difficult to access and navigate. This is true in every state across the country.

To address these challenges, Children's Hospital Boston collaborated with parent, consumer, and legal advocacy organizations and a major public welfare agency to launch a five year campaign calling for major reform of the state's mental health care system for children and adolescents. The campaign is currently endorsed by 90 organizations. To date the campaign has developed and filed comprehensive legislation, created reports, and engaged a significant number of parents, families, legal advocates, clinicians, etc.

The objective of the Campaign is to dramatically improve mental health systems of care; it is designed to influence state government, insurers, clinicians, educators and the public to ensure that children are identified early, referred to appropriate and timely treatment, that insurers pay for the treatment and that the state plays a more active role in coordinating services. Campaign partners believe that significant reform is possible, but will take sustained, well-coordinated, and strategic advocacy working on multiple levels to achieve success. We will discuss why we chose these issues, how we developed legislative language, and who we needed to engage to drive the issues forward.