Washington Community Mental Health Council 2008 Advocacy Goals

Provide stable and predictable funding for community mental health services

Increase state-only (non-Medicaid) funding for people not covered by Medicaid to achieve parity with Medicaid funding

Improve access to a continuum of children’s mental health services

Expand RSN/Medicaid Access to Care Standards to allow more children and youth to obtain services; and
Secure the necessary funds to support the increased access

Improve work environment for community mental health staff

Reduce paperwork burden for clinical staff and consumers, beginning by advocating for the stakeholder recommendations already submitted to the Mental Health Division
Promote measures that improve recruitment & retention of community mental health staff

Be watching for more information and ways to get involved as the Council pursues these goals over the coming months.
Every Voice Matters!

2008 Legislative Session Report Card

When we entered the 2008 legislative session, the Council Board set three priority policy goals to guide our advocacy efforts for the session:

Provide stable and predictable funding for community mental health treatment to protect against service erosion.
Continue to improve the work environment for community mental health staff.
Support legislation to address quality and accountability issues related to the current Registered Counselor credential.

HERE ARE THE RESULTS:

Provide stable and predictable funding for community mental health treatment to protect against service erosion.

Goal

Final legislative outcome

Increase state-only (non-Medicaid) funding for people not covered by Medicaid to achieve parity with Medicaid funding.

Seek $12.5M of the $30M needed to provide outpatient mental health treatment services to high-risk, low-income, non-Medicaid individuals, such as individuals who are homeless, discharged from inpatient psychiatric hospitals and/or identified through pre-booking jail diversion.

$6.25 million of state-only funding was added for non-Medicaid services around the state.
$2.25 million was provided for Spokane RSN to implement new services to reduce the census at ESH.
$215,000 was provided directly to Pierce provider agencies to help mitigate the start-up costs that occurred when the RSN reverted to the state and became fee for service.
$2.869 million was provided to increase Medicaid rates to RSNs.

2. Continue to improve the work environment for community mental health staff.
Goal	Final legislative outcome
Work with DSHS/HRSA’s Mental Health Division to reduce paperwork burden for clinical staff and consumers, by implementing the 2006 stakeholder recommendations; and Seek project funding from the Legislature to support this effort.	MHD has formed a joint workgroup of MHD staff, RSN administrators, and representatives from the Council to review and reduce paperwork, starting with the 2006 stakeholders recommendations. Thanks to our efforts, $100,000 was included in the legislative budget to provide direct support to this project, and the money would come with a deadline to report progress back to the Legislature. Unfortunately, this proviso was vetoed by the Governor.
3. Support legislation to address quality and accountability issues related to the current Registered Counselor credential.
Goal	Final legislative outcome
Ensure inclusion of Agency Affiliated Counselor credential in new legislation. Ensure that credentialing standards are appropriate for licensed community mental health settings.	HB 2674 was passed, and it recognizes Agency Affiliated Counselors as a separate category of counselor. We were able to get the bill language changed in three areas to reduce paperwork, eliminate duplicative continuing education requirements, and support peer support counselors.

For more information contact Ann Christian at achristian@wcmhcnet.org or Gregory Robinson at grobinson@wcmhcnet.org