The Children’s Behavioral Health Initiative (CBHI) is an interagency effort of the Commonwealth’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services. CBHI’s mission is to strengthen, expand and integrate Massachusetts state mental health services into a comprehensive community-based system of care, to ensure that families and their children with significant behavioral, emotional and mental health needs receive the services necessary for success in the home, school and community.

CBHI is pleased to announce several new community-based services for children and youth, under age 21, who are enrolled in MassHealth, the state Medicaid program that provides health care benefits for individuals with low income and individuals with disabilities of any income, living in Massachusetts. In these new services, parents and caregivers play a strong and active role in deciding about treatment for their child. On June 30, 2009, MassHealth began covering three new behavioral health services for children and youth:

Intensive Care Coordination:
A model of care coordination using the “Wraparound” team approach for children with Serious Emotional Disturbance or “SED”.

Family Support & Training:
A care model that links parents with a “Family Partner,” a person with life experience as the parent or caregiver of a child with behavioral health needs, who has been trained to provide support, and helps parents navigate the system.

Mobile Crisis Intervention:
A behavioral health intervention for children who are in crisis. A Mobile Crisis team goes to the location to help stabilize the child or youth; the team can remain involved up to 72 hours.

Beginning this fall, MassHealth will provide coverage for three additional behavioral health services. These services include:

In-Home Behavioral Services:
Behavior therapy provided in the home or community for children and youth with specific problem behaviors. This new service provides special behavior plans for children who might not be helped by other therapeutic approaches. Services are provided by behavior therapists skilled in understanding and treating problem behaviors and by paraprofessionals who help family members implement the child’s or youth’s behavior management plan. Start date is October 1, 2009.

Therapeutic Mentoring Services:
A therapeutic mentor works one-on-one with a child or youth who, because of their behavioral-health needs, requires support and coaching to learn social skills, including better ways to communicate and get along with others. Start date is October 1, 2009.

In-Home Therapy Services:
Intensive therapy is provided for a child and family to treat the child’s or youth’s behavioral-health needs and help the family support him or her in the home. Start date is November 1, 2009.

These new services are available to children and youth under the age of 21 who are enrolled in MassHealth Standard or CommonHealth*. Mobile Crisis Intervention and In-Home Therapy are available to all MassHealth coverage types.

Referral for these services can begin with a behavioral health screening performed by the child’s pediatrician or primary care doctor or nurse, or the MassHealth member (or parent/caretaker) can apply for services directly from a provider.

To learn more about MassHealth Standard or CommonHealth eligibility, call MassHealth Customer Service at 1-800-841-2900 (TTY: 1-800-497-4648 for people with partial or total hearing loss) or call the Massachusetts Family-to-Family Health Information Center at the Federation at 1-800-331-0688, ext. 210 or e-mail massfv@fcsn.org.

[Editor’s note: *CommonHealth provides healthcare benefits similar to MassHealth Standard to children, youth and adults with disabilities/special health needs who are not eligible for MassHealth Standard due to income. There is a sliding scale premium for CommonHealth.]