New Jersey, Massachusetts to Restructure Children’s Mental Health Services
Acting New Jersey Gov. Donald DiFrancesco (R) this week announced that he will "allow the full implementation" of a $113 million plan to restructure mental health services for children, the Newark Star-Ledger reports. Former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman (R) last year originally proposed the plan, the Children's System of Care Initiative, which allows private companies to coordinate mental health services for New Jersey children. Although three counties began piloting the program last February, DiFrancesco in March put the plan on hold after labor leaders asked him to consider both the program's cost and its use of private companies instead of state workers to refer child patients to hospitals, counseling centers and other services. To examine these concerns, DiFrancesco hired the Washington, D.C.-based child policy group Human Services Collaborative, which issued a "positive" review that led him to reinstate the program. The report called both the "degree of change" prompted by the program and the "satisfaction" expressed by its participants "substantial." In addition, the report agreed with the state's previous decision to hire a central administrator to coordinate the initiative statewide. According to the Star-Ledger, the state would like to hire a private firm for that purpose, which will likely cost in excess of $20 million. However, Hetty Rosenstein, a negotiator for the state employee union, called the plan a "phony bureaucracy" and said, "All $113 million could be spent on services for children, but most of it is going toward a new bureaucracy." The program is expected to expand to four additional counties by fall (Livio, Newark Star-Ledger, 7/12).
Massachusetts Seeks Expanded Community Care
Massachusetts state officials are currently negotiating to expand the treatment offered outside of psychiatric hospitals to children and adolescents with mental illness. Advocates, who have "long been demanding" more community-based mental health services, say that the details of the expansion will determine whether they file a class-action lawsuit against the state (Goldberg, New York Times, 7/13).
