Also from the Children's Mental Health Campaign

If you can't make the meeting on the 14th, consider this meeting on the 16th:

CMHC Legislative Committee

Thurs., Sept. 16

3-5 PM

9th Floor Conference Room

30 Winter Street, Boston

As the legislature goes into informal session - likely for the remainder of the 2009-2010 legislative session - it's time to look toward setting our agenda for the 2011-2012 session.

The Legislative Committee will be reconvening to begin that work on Thursday September 16th from 3:00-5:00 in the 9th floor conference room at Health Care for All.

The goals for the meeting will be to

• Agree on legislation which we will seek to have filed on behalf of the campaign,
• Establish a process for drafting and filing new legislation and
• Discuss a proposed process by which the CMHC will support legislation filed by others. (this will be sent to you prior to the meeting)
• The issues we are currently considering are below. If there are other legislative issues that you would like considered please feel free to contact me to discuss them. In addition, we welcome receiving any information which would inform our work that you would like to have distributed to members ahead of time.

Please respond directly to Nancy Allen Scannell at

Nscannell@mspcc.org or 617-587-1510.

Legislation:

Refiles:

• Coordination of Care: Discussion of options for refilling the coordination of care bill.
• CHINS: Discussion of ongoing support for the CHINS bill.

New:

Based on the input we have received to date we are currently considering new legislation to address the following issues

1. Establish a uniform definition of "out of school time." Time out of school has a profound negative impact on children. However, the ability to get a complete picture of 'out of school time" is hampered by the existence of an array of terms used to describe time that children are excluded from school. The intent of creating a uniform overarching definition of out of school time to apply to early, elementary and secondary settings is to facilitate the collection of information and data to inform strategies for increasing the amount of time that children are in school.

2. Mandated attendance State Agencies and LEAs at meetings to Coordinate Care

The lack of a forum where parents can expect the attendance of all state and local authorities who are involved in providing care to their child creates tremendous issues in coordinating care for the child. The delays and mixed messages that result from multiple separate meetings between and among the parties are harmful to the child's well being, put an enormous burden for advocacy on parents and are a waste of precious human and financial resources. Solutions under consideration are mandating LEA participation in the Unified Planning Teams established under Ch.321 of the Acts of 2008 or mandating State Agency participation in IEP meetings.

3. Payment Reform

The CMHC is very concerned about the absence of any focus on systems of care for children and especially children with mental and behavioral health issues in the larger discussions of payment reform. We hope to establish a strategy for ensuring that these issues are given due consideration in any proposal that begins to move toward becoming law.