Children’s Mental Health Crisis Services, Part 4

We continue our series on children’s mental health crisis services.  In this blog we will provide a summary of The Mental Health Services Oversight & Accountability Commission (MHSOAC) innovative project to understand the state of children’s mental health crisis services in order to improve service quality and outcomes.   MHSOAC Children’s Crisis Services Project: To…

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Suicide Prevention Month is Over, But We Always Fight on.

As we come to the end of Suicide Prevention Month, Governor Brown signed in to law Assembly Bill 2246 (O’Donnell) to mandate that districts with students in grades 7 to 12 adopt suicide prevention policies. While districts were previously encouraged to develop suicide prevention policies, this bill will ensure that district governing boards adopt policies to prevent suicides. According to data from…

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Alcohol and Other Drug/Substance Use Disorders

Pathways to accessing Substance Use Disorder Services and Supports Individuals, parents, family, friends and coworkers often ask “How can I get into treatment?” or “How can I get John/Jane into treatment?”  After providing publicly and commercially funded substance use disorder (SUD) services for decades within California, why isn’t the answer to this question as well…

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September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month

Youth Suicide In Schools, Mental Health Should Be Everyone’s Responsibility Background In the last decade, suicide has jumped from being the third to the second leading cause of death for youth between 10 and 24 year olds. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention reports that approximately 4,600 lives are lost each year—and that…

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Children’s Mental Health Crisis Services, Part 3

Last month our blog returned to the topic of children’s mental health crisis services.  This week’s blog will continue our focus on this important part of the continuum of mental health care for children, youth, and families. Grant Funding Dedicated to Expanding Local Crisis Resources for Children and Families Citing reports which called to attention…

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California’s Foster Youth Need You Now!

SPECIAL EDITION As the 2nd year in the two-year bill session comes to an end, many bills are still alive and headed to the governor’s desk. This includes several important bill related to children’s mental health. In last week’s blog highlighted an important bill (AB741) which, if signed by the governor, will allow California to…

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New Website!

Hi everyone! We are very excited to announce our brand new website! After months of imagination, design, and hard work, our team has finally finished the re-design of our website. Check it out and get ready for next year’s conference here: https://cmhacy.org From all of us at CMHACY, enjoy!  

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Children’s Mental Health Crisis Services, Part 2

On May 10th, 2016 we posted our first blog on children’s mental health crisis services. In the blog we summarized the increased attention to the specific needs of children and families when they find themselves faced with a mental health crisis. The blog reported that children’s mental health crises were often more complicated to resolve…

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John Boyd: Leadership Thoughts to Share

Our 36th annual conference included an increasing number of attendees associated with commercial insurance and hospital systems. One such attendee was John Boyd, System Executive Mental Health. CEO, Sutter Solano Medical Center & Sutter Center for Psychiatry. When discussing what he took away from the conference, Dr. Boyd stated, “I believe we need to slow…

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