The agencies and offices across HHS https://www.hhs.gov are partnering with schools to advance behavioral health for children, youth, and their families to improve access, promote equity, and foster innovations to achieve this goal.
Several of the agencies within HHS are partnering with schools on several programs. SAMHSA has invested $107 million in FY 2021 to support the Advancing Wellness and Resiliency in Education (AWARE) program.
The goal for AWARE is to help build or expand state and local governments’ coordination to increase awareness of mental health issues among school aged youth and connect school- aged children who may have behavioral health issues.
HRSA is supporting the Collaborative Improvement and Innovation Network for School Based Health Services to promote best practices among school-based health centers, comprehensive mental health systems, schools, and school districts.
In some other programs related to behavioral health, HRSA supports the Pediatric Mental Health Care Access program to promote behavioral health integration into pediatric primary care using telehealth.
This program utilizes State or regional networks with pediatric mental health teams to providing teleconsultations, training, technical assistance, and care coordination for pediatric primary care providers to diagnose and treat children with behavioral health conditions. So far, HHS has invested $10 million in this program in FY 2021 and announced a $10.7 million expansion from the American Rescue Plan in August 2021.
CDC has funded a project to synthesize the best available research and practices into a toolkit that describes how to develop, implement, evaluate, and sustain a comprehensive mental health promotion program in K-12 schools.
CDC has also established demonstration projects to investigate strategies that could help schools and students recover from the impact of COVID-19. CDC provides support for local school districts to establish effective health and wellness infrastructure and then employ primary prevention strategies to improve the mental health of adolescents with a specific focus on advancing health equity.
CMS supports the Integrated Care for Kids (InCK) Model. This is a child centered local service delivery and state payment model that aims to reduce expenditures and improve the quality of care for children under 21 covered by Medicaid through prevention, early identification, and treatment for behavioral and physical health needs. In FY 2021, CMS invested $25 million in the (InCK) program.
Also, CMS is collaborating with the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) to reduce barriers to using telehealth for pediatric populations included in a report on the use of behavioral health services via telehealth for Medicaid beneficiaries aged 21 and younger.
Go to https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2021/10/08/fact-sheet-efforts-across-hhs-promote-behavioral-health-for-children-and-youth.html for the Fact Sheet: Efforts Across HHS to Promote Behavioral health for Children and Youth. Information is available on how HHS is Improving Access, Capacity, and Equity plus other projects.