The Georgia Behavioral Health Reform & Innovation Commission––an appointed committee tasked with thoroughly reviewing the state’s behavioral health system––recently held their second meeting. During the extensive assembly, the subcommittees were given the opportunity to address their perspective issues. Among them, Dr. Sarah Vinson, Sub-Chairwoman of the Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health Subcommittee, took the floor as the only practicing child clinician on the commission to introduce the appointees of her group and present their recommendations.
In her presentation highlighting children mental health/behavioral crises, Dr. Vinson addresses this question: WHY are there so many children in a crisis in the first place? Briefing state-wide calamities and other contributing factors, she gives the group four recommendations to consider:
Explore a Unified Medicaid Formulary
Sustainably support integrated care by primary care providers
Fund and Expand Georgia Apex Program
Sustain and Support School-Based Health Centers
About the Georgia Behavioral Health Reform & Innovation Commission
The Georgia Behavioral Health Reform and Innovation Commission was created for the purpose of conducting a comprehensive review of the behavioral health system in Georgia. Such review shall include the behavioral health services and facilities available in this state, the identification of behavioral health issues in children, adolescents, and adults, the role the educational system has in the identification and treatment of behavioral health issues, the impact behavioral health issues have on the court system and correctional system, the legal and systemic barriers to treatment of mental illnesses, workforce shortages that impact the delivery of care, whether there is sufficient access to behavioral health services and supports and the role of payers in such access, the impact on how untreated behavioral illness can impact children into adulthood, the need for aftercare for persons exiting the criminal justice system, and the impact of behavioral illness on the state's homeless population (casetext).