On Tuesday, February 1, 2022, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions held a hearing entitled “Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders: Responding to the Growing Crisis.” Chairwoman Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) highlighted that millions of people across the country face mental health disorders, while 130 million Americans live in areas with
On Wednesday, February 2nd, the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing on "America's Mental Health Crisis." The full 42-member Committee heard testimony from: Dr. Wizdom Powell (Director of the Health Disparities Institute and Associate Professor of Psychiatry) focused on four main points, youth as a target population in the mental health crisis, the
These reports are being released while Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is beginning to accept applications for Services Grant Program for Residential Treatment for Pregnant and Postpartum Women. This $10 million grant program will provide pregnant and postpartum women and their children with comprehensive substance use treatment and recovery support services across
On January 24, 2022, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) published it’s notice of Implementation of the Fostering Stable Housing Opportunities (FSHO) Amendments in the Federal Register. FSHO, signed by the President on December 27, 2020, made changes to the assistance provided to youth eligible for the Family Unification Program (FUP). FUP provides
On January 21, 2022, the Children’s Bureau released the annual child abuse and neglect report: Child Maltreatment 2020. This year’s report based on data and reports in the first year of the pandemic, shows an overall decrease in abuse and neglect reports and fatalities, but the numbers also highlight some troubling trends or questions: A
On January 25, 2022, three new programs were rated and two were approved for federal funding under by the Title IV-E Prevention Services Clearinghouse Youth Villages’ Intercept® becomes one of only 12 programs to earn the well-supported distinction from the Clearinghouse, the top category out of three allowing states to spend without bumping into any spending
The American Bar Association’s (ABA) Center on Children and the Law has released their National Datasheet for 2022. The 2022 National Datasheet includes resources that summarize key research findings on foster care youth in education, provide a national summary of student outcome data, and summarize federal laws that address the disparate educational outcomes that foster
Two Senate Committees and one House Committee are focusing on the challenges of access to mental health and substance use services in the next few weeks. The Senate HELP Committee, the Senate Finance Committee and the full House Ways and Means Committee are all focused on the subject and what can be done. The HELP
A newly published survey and research paper, Difficulty Obtaining Behavioral Health Services for Children: A National Survey of Multiphysician Practices, conducted before the pandemic indicates that 85 percent of group practices for children and youth have had difficulty in finding evidence-based psychotherapy; family-based treatment and medication advice from a child psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse practitioner.
The CTC has been federal law since the mid-1990s, but last year’s expansion added several improvements that lifted approximately half of children out of poverty. It did that by making the tax “refundable’ meaning families could benefit even if they did not have enough “earned-income.’ It also added an innovation to make it more immediate: