Connecticut’s Behavioral Health Plan for Children

In order to implement a system of care throughout Connecticut, system re-organization is needed that includes the integration of public funding, the creation of a Care Management Entity to streamline access and management of services, addressing areas of concern related to commercial (private) insurance; and creating an integrated data structure across the system of care.

Promotion, prevention and early intervention strategies are key elements of supporting healthy children. The Plan recommends implementing promotion and prevention models across all age groups and settings, providing consistent screening for behavioral concerns, ensuring families and service providers are equipped with knowledge of behavioral health, trauma, and serious mental illness, and developing effective programs focused on trauma-informed care and suicide prevention.

As Connecticut continues to invest and strengthen existing elements of the comprehensive service array, the Plan calls for specific investment and strengthening of the following areas:

• early childhood interventions;
• non-traditional/non-clinical services (i.e., faith-based services, peer support, after-school support, respite care);
• care coordination, and behavioral health treatment;
• expansion of mobile crisis services to avoid emergency room use;
• and expanding school-based efforts to address mental and behavioral health within school settings.

Pediatric primary care is a unique setting that provides opportunities for identifying the needs of children with behavioral health concerns.Primary care and behavioral health providers can also be better integrated through a variety of strategies, such as: co-location of services, educational programs for pediatric primary care, and more.

To eliminate disparities in access, quality, and outcomes of care, the Plan recommends implementing and sustaining standards for culturally appropriate care, in accordance with the National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS), as well as widening the availability of services that are culturally responsive.

Engaging family and youth as full partners is critical in developing and implementing a children’s behavioral health system. This includes developing the capacity of family members and youth to be equipped in advocating for system change and including family members and youth with lived experience in the governance and oversight of the behavioral health system.

Workforce is an essential component woven throughout the Plan, including at least 16 strategies that have clear workforce implications. The Plan calls for broadening the conception of who is part of the behavioral health workforce, and developing a workforce subcommittee within the governance structure to develop a more comprehensive approach to expanding, training, and supporting the workforce.

The initial Plan focuses on the importance of cultural responsiveness and implementing the National CLAS Standards in children’s behavioral health services. Connecting to Care has emphasized the importance of the National CLAS Standards in helping to address racial injustice and ultimately eliminate health disparities in children’s behavioral health.

While the Plan outlines that all professions must be adequately trained to support children’s behavioral health, there was a subsequent realization that families must be seen as full partners in their own service delivery as well as system change. Thus, workforce development has grown to incorporate training service providers to embrace families as full partners, as well as training and mentoring youth and families about how to share their experiences to inform changes to the children’s behavioral health systems.

In addition to better preventing and identifying potential behavioral health concerns for all children, a service gap for the early detection and treatment for psychosis has continued to be a prominent issue across both the children’s and adult behavioral health system. As a result, there has been an emerging focus to transform access, care quality, and outcomes for individuals and families impacted by recent onset psychosis.