The Child and Adolescent Mental Health program focuses on improving mental health services through identifying and monitoring gaps in care, working with mental health providers to improve service delivery, enhancing awareness of the mental health issues, and advocating for services and system changes to improve care.
The program supports a Coalition of organizations to improve service delivery and advocates for issues that impact mental health such as reimbursement. The program has also partnered with the state Departments of Mental Health and Social Services and the Boston Public Schools to improve services for school-age children in the city. This includes sponsoring training's for teachers and other school personnel, connecting schools with mental health providers, improving linkages with emergency services and hospitals, and developing guidelines for how mental health services should be delivered to best meet the needs of children and adolescents and their families.
Boston Coalition for Child & Adolescent Mental Health
The Boston Coalition for Child and Adolescent Mental Health represents individuals and organizations who have come together to promote child and adolescent mental health, and decrease substance abuse and violence.
The development of the Coalition followed the Commission's involvement in several initiatives occurring across the city, all of which focused on promoting mental health and resiliency among youth. These included a partnership with the Department of Mental Health and the Boston Public Schools to improve mental health within schools, a series of neighborhood health meetings in which the issue of mental health was repeatedly voiced as a serious concern of residents, work with the Mayor's Office of Community Partnerships on their Citywide youth strategy and holding a number of meetings with mental health providers. Most recently, the BHPC commissioned a study to better understand how mental health services, along with substance abuse and domestic violence prevention services, could be better integrated into the City's public health services.
In May of 2000, the Commission formalized the various working groups into a coalition that subsequently received funding from SAMHSA to support its work. Agencies that have historically not worked together have come together, unified in their commitment to strengthen the city's youth through a common vision, mission and defined objectives. Over 50 individuals and organizations have participated in the development of a proposal to SAMHSA including parent groups, educators, academia, public safety officials, juvenile justice, child welfare, community and mental health organizations, and youth.
Vision Statement
It is our collective vision that through the efforts of the Boston Coalition for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, all youth and their families will have the opportunity to achieve optimal mental health through access to primary prevention resources designed to promote mental health and well-being and foster resiliency among children and youth. This vision is based on a shared conceptual framework regarding the development of children: first that development occurs in context-children develop in families, schools and communities; second, that development occurs at multiple levels-biological, psychological and social-and that we cannot successfully deal with mental health apart from these other issues; third, that development occurs over the lifespan and that we must address families and adults as well as children; and finally, that development involves both strengths and deficits, risk and resilience, normal and abnormal growth.
The Coalition will work to improve service coordination and the quality of services provided through the following objectives:
- Identify best practices and promote these approaches in program development
- Educate individuals outside of the mental health system who are in a position to help youth regarding mental health issues
- Develop a public information campaign to de-mystify and de-stigmatize mental health issues
- Develop a website and newsletter for information sharing and collaboration on mental health and youth development.
- Improve surveillance of key indicators of child and adolescent mental health issues
- Provide training to professionals and lay persons on various mental health issues
The goals of the Coalition will only be reached through the partnerships that are forming. These relationships are key to the success and sustainability of the Coalition. If you are interested in learning more about the Coalition, please contact Bernadette Moitt at (617) 534-5671.