A new law to increase early detection and care for children's mental health problems has advocates excited about what they consider a "major step" forward.
"It tries to improve coordination within state government of all the different agencies that work with children with mental health issues so that kids' care wont fall between the cracks," Rep. Ruth Balser, D-Newton, said at a recent State House gathering to celebrate the new law.
Gov. Deval Patrick and top legislators also were on hand to recognize the legislation that became law on Aug. 21.
"This bill provides some very important new tools in the network of support for young people," Patrick said. "(It is) a way of lifting us all to a better place in terms of the vigilance that we give to the emotional and intellectual and mental development of our young people."
The new act is intended to increase mental health consultation in schools and promote early screening for children. Balser said the law calls for a behavioral health advisory council to ensure better cooperation among the different agencies that provide mental health services for children entering the system.
In addition, it sets up a process of consultation with mental health care professionals in preschool and school settings, as well as pediatricians' offices.
"The cost of not treating children with emotional problems ends up later to be much more costly," Balser said. "If you get treatment for kids early, over time you're going to save money in the system."
Matt Noyes, children's health coordinator for Health Care for All, estimated that before the law took effect some 70 percent of children in need of mental health services were not getting the necessary support.
"Massachusetts ranks ninth in the country at the rate of expelling preschool kids from preschool. I didn't know you could get expelled from preschool," he said. He said that test programs have the expulsion rate down to virtually zero.
Balser said the bill will set up a task force on behavioral health in public schools to start building a framework to develop school programs.
"What we really want eventually is to have all schools have the capacity to detect and screen for mental health issues," Balser said. "So this bill is very far-reaching in that it sets up a structure where we can begin to do that."
Over the next few months a series of commissions will be set up to deal with mental health services in schools.
The bill is named Yolanda's Law after a teenager named Yolanda Torres who spoke to a legislative hearing about her battle with anxiety and bipolar disorder. She committed suicide eight months after that hearing.
Her mother, Mary Ann Tufts, spoke at last week's ceremony.
"Keep going we must, with purpose," she said. "Because although the signing of the law is huge, the appropriate enactment is so much bigger."
