Integrated School-Based Behavioral Health Partnership Program.

Existing law requires the governing board of any school district to give diligent care to the health and physical development of pupils and authorizes the governing board of a school district to employ properly certified persons for the work. The School-based Early Mental Health Intervention and Prevention Services for Children Act of 1991 authorizes the Director of Health Care Services, in consultation with the Superintendent of Public Instruction, to award matching grants to local educational agencies to pay the state share of the costs of providing school-based early mental health intervention and prevention services to eligible pupils at schoolsites of eligible pupils, subject to the availability of funding each year. This bill would authorize the Integrated School-Based Behavioral Health Partnership Program, which the bill would establish, to provide prevention and early intervention for, and access to, behavioral health services for pupils. The bill would authorize a county behavioral health agency and the governing board or body of a local educational agency to agree to collaborate on conducting a needs assessment on the need for school-based mental health and substance use disorder services, to implement an integrated school-based behavioral health partnership program, and to develop a memorandum of understanding outlining the requirements for the partnership program. The bill would encourage the county behavioral health agency and the local educational agency, when appropriate, to enter into a contract for mental health or substance use disorder services. As part of a partnership program, the bill would require a county behavioral health agency to provide, through its own staff or through its network of contracted community-based organizations, one or more behavioral health professionals that meet specified contract, licensing, and supervision requirements, and who have a valid, current satisfactory background check, to serve pupils with serious emotional disturbances or substance use disorders, or who are at risk of developing a serious behavioral health condition. The bill would require a local educational agency to provide school-based locations, including space at schools, appropriate for the delivery of behavioral health services, and would additionally authorize these services to be provided through telehealth or through appropriate referral. The bill would require parents and guardians to be notified of, and contacted for information related to, these services by local educational agencies, as provided. The bill would establish processes for delivering services, and would specify the types of services, including prevention, intervention, and brief initial intervention services, as specified, that may be provided pursuant to the partnership program. The bill would require the local educational agency and county behavioral health agency to develop a process related to serving pupils with private coverage, including a process to seek reimbursement from private insurers for behavioral health services provided to a pupil. The bill would require the memorandum of understanding of the partnership program to specify, among other things, how a pupil will be served if a pupil has coverage from a health plan or insurer that is not regulated by the state, or if the parent or guardian cannot afford the cost sharing required under their health plan contract or health insurance policy. The bill would require the partnership program to annually report specified information to the State Department of Health Care Services and the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission, and would require the commission, in collaboration with the department, to report that information to the Legislature every 3 years, as specified. The bill would also require the partnership program to annually report specified pupil referral information to the Department of Managed Health Care and the Department of Insurance, as provided. The bill would authorize a partnership program to provide services to individuals with exceptional needs, including services required by the pupil's individualized education program, as specified.