Washington Informer: D.C.’s School Mental Health System Works — Don’t Dismantle It (Op-Ed)

Carolyn Greenspan, Director of the School-Based Mental Health program at Mary’s Center, authors this opinion piece outlining concerns about DBH’s proposed comprehensive plan for school based behavioral health, which includes phasing out contracts with community-based organizations like Mary’s Center.

Transitioning the D.C. Department of Behavioral Health School-Based Behavioral Health program away from CBOs would be a massive undertaking that is bound to be incredibly disruptive as current clinicians are pulled out of schools. The proposed plan will reduce the number of CBO contracts from 12 to a maximum of four in school year 2026-27, before removing all CBO positions in school year 2027-28. This would reduce Mary’s Center’s capacity to a quarter of what it was in school year 2024-25, when we served 662 students. Instead, we will only be able to serve an estimated 171 students. It is unclear how services for the remaining three-quarters of students will be transitioned to other providers, if at all. Not only that, but this would also be a loss of years of work that we have done to build relationships, infrastructure, and resources alongside our school partners.

Washington Post: D.C.’s sole mental health crisis team for kids under threat in new budget

Lauren Lumpkin reports on a funding gap threatening to shutter the Child and Adolescent Mobile Psychiatric Service, DC’s only crisis response team dedicated to children and youth. The piece features Chris Gamble of Children’s Law Center, a member of the Strengthening Families Coalition.

Youth advocates are sounding an alarm over the proposed cut — hoping to preserve a program they say fills critical gaps in D.C.’s spotty mental health workforce. Out of D.C’s roughly 250 traditional public and charter schools, about 100 are not staffed with a mental health clinician, according to June 2 testimony from Barbara J. Bazron, DBH director.

The reduction comes amid other cuts to youth mental health, locally and throughout the country. The Trump administration said it would shut down a suicide prevention hotline for LGBTQ youths. D.C.’s DBH also reduced its school-based behavioral health programming budget by $2.3 million, part of which was paid to community-based organizations to provide additional services to high-need schools but was never spent, according to Bazron.

“It’s acknowledged by the community, by the government itself that we have a lot of gaps. To essentially intentionally open another gap doesn’t make sense,” said Chris Gamble, behavioral health policy analyst at the Children’s Law Center.

The Washington Post: The Kids Are Not Okay, and D.C. Schools Stand to Lose Critical Therapists

In a piece written during the height of the DC 2024 budget oversight season, Washington Post reporter Theresa Vargas dives into the lack of funding for behavioral health clinicians in DC schools. Judith Sandalow of Children’s Law Center, a member of the Strengthening Families Coalition, is quoted:

“In a year of tough choices, we urge you to continue to prioritize addressing the youth mental health crisis,” Judith Sandalow, the executive director of Children’s Law Center, said in testimony delivered at a budget hearing on Friday. “Unless there is sufficient funding to allow [community-based organizations] to continue to offer competitive pay, incentives and professional support to clinicians, the entire program is at risk.”

As proof of the need, Sandalow cited the findings of a 2021 DC Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Some of the data she noted: 28 percent of middle school students have seriously thought about killing themselves, about 12 percent of middle and high school students have taken prescription pain medicine without a doctor’s prescription, and more than 19 percent of middle school students and more than 25 percent of high school students reported that their mental health was “not good” most of the time or always.

Washington Informer: During Budget Season, Mental Health Care System Becomes Major Concern

“I’m interested in seeing where the money is going, if the District will use a portion of the money to assess the services needed across the schools, and how well the process is going to be put together to ensure people who need services are getting them at different levels.” - Ward 4 PAVE parent leader Amber Golden

Read Ward 4 PAVE parent leader Amber Golden’s feature in the Washington Informer to learn why she wants to see:

1. A School-Based Behavioral Health needs assessment across all DC schools

2. An increase in the clinician hiring pipeline that 1ensures clinicians aren’t overloaded by their work and supports finding more clinicians of color.

WJLA: DC education budget hearing lasts for more than 10 hours, dozens request more funding

“As both the mother of a child who has been diagnosed with ODD and as an early childhood special education teacher in Ward 8, I have firsthand witness and experience with issues related to school-based mental health.” - Ward 8 PAVE parent leader India Patrick

Watch India Patrick, a Ward 8 PAVE parent leader, testify to members of the DC Council to share her experience as an educator and a mom in need of more mental health supports for her child and her students.

NBC Washington: News for Your Sunday

News4’s Pat Lawson Muse spoke with Tami Weerashinga-Cote of Children’s Law Center on how the pandemic has affected children's behavioral health.

WCP: DBH Questioned at Oversight About Overcrowding, Access to Treatment, and ‘Chaos’

“The inability to access behavioral health services is a serious obstacle to these children overcoming the traumas they’ve already experienced in their young lives.”

Washington City Paper included testimony from Strengthening Families Coalition members who expressed the need for the Department of Behavioral Health (DBH) to include increased investment in the School-Based Behavioral Health Program.