Search Results for: mental health

Not only is California’s Medi-Cal system and its public behavioral health system changing (see California As A Bellwether, California & The Mental Health Carve-Out, and Innovation, California Style), some of the basic policies and practices for serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are evolving as well. The California State Department of Developmental Disabilities (DDS) is responsible for this population through the administration of the Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Services Act and the Early Intervention Services Act, laws which ensure the coordination and provision of services and supports for people with developmental disabilities. Read more.

The California Senate Budget Subcommittee on Health and Human Services heard testimony Monday, May 18th, on proposed changes to the methodology used to allocate 2011 Realignment Behavioral Health Growth funding to county mental health programs.

The Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) is considering submitting a recommendation to the Department of Finance (DOF), the agency ultimately responsible for setting the methodology, to distribute growth funding based almost entirely on historical spending patterns. The Medi-Cal Early and Periodic, Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment (EPSDT) specialty mental health program, a core component of California’s public mental health system for children, took central focus at yesterday’s hearing. Read more.

California Health and Human Services Agency Secretary Diana Dooley announced on Friday (December 5) that the Brown Administration’s Developmental Services Task Force, created last July to take steps toward strengthening services and supports in the community for hundreds of thousands of children and adults with developmental disabilities, will focus initially on two major issues – provider rates and rate restructure, and regional center caseloads and operations – in smaller workgroups, composed of task force members, in meetings scheduled for December 16th , and in January, with follow-up meetings in February and March. The task force, headed by Secretary Dooley, is composed of advocates, providers, regional centers, family members and people who receive services.

Two other issues identified by the Developmental Services Task Force during the July and October meetings of critical importance to people with developmental disabilities – Medical and Mental Health Services and Supports, and the issue of Housing and Employment, will be the subject of workgroup meetings of the task force later next year as work progresses on the issues of rates/rates restructuring, and regional center caseload ratios and operations. Read more.