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Directors overseeing programs that provide intensive mental health help to Massachusetts’ most vulnerable children and adolescents say Gov. Maura Healey’s proposal to consolidate the services has caught them “off guard.”
The Healey administration is looking to save $15.3 million in the next fiscal year’s budget by slashing funding for a 30-bed dual intensive residential treatment program for adolescents in Westboro and a 12-bed program for children ages 6-12 in Belchertown.
Officials with the state Department of Mental Health say the programs are operating at half capacity and consolidating them would ensure “taxpayer dollars are used effectively,” but the providers argue that there’s much more to the story.
If the proposal gets legislative approval in Healey’s roughly $62 billion budget request, the Bay State would lose its only intensive residential treatment program for children between the ages of 6 and 12 who are suffering from suicidal and/or homicidal ideations or other complex needs.
Tina Champagne, CEO of Cutchins Programs for Children and Families, runs the program, called “Three Rivers,” based in Western Massachusetts that serves children from all over the state. She called the governor’s request “mind boggling.”
“These services are needed or are going to be needed more than ever,” Champagne told the Herald. “The mental health crisis for children and families started to really increase after COVID. The pandemic ripple effects are still in effect in addition to all the uncertainty in the world.”
NFI Massachusetts provides intensive services to adolescents ages 13-18 who suffer from “serious emotional disturbance, trauma histories or mental health diagnoses.”
The program is like Three Rivers in that it helps those who need more care than what’s provided in a hospital or a more community-based setting, like at a school or doctor’s office, Executive Director Lydia Todd told the Herald.
“We maintain that the reasons for the underutilization do not equate to no need,” Todd said, “but there are instead bureaucratic obstacles, lack of marketing and lack of knowledge that needs to happen to make sure we are fully utilized.”
The proposed funding cuts are even more baffling, Champagne and Todd said, after they highlighted how the state had “invested millions” to relocate their programs within the past few years.
NFI Massachusetts and Three Rivers are not state-owned. The DMH has said that it “incurs the same costs regardless of whether a program is fully or partially utilized” as the programs are “contracted through an accommodation rate model.”
The proposed funding cuts “also reflect our commitment to helping people transition to receiving mental health care services in their homes and communities, which is a more effective way to provide treatment,” the agency says.
“However,” it has added, “adolescent patients will still be able to receive treatment at other locations in the state and younger children will be able to receive acute care treatment at hospitals when necessary.”
An agency spokesperson told the Herald Saturday that the governor’s proposed DMH budget requests an increase of $1.2 billion, or 7% more than current spending. The spokesperson added that the agency has “expanded access to care through our 31 Community Behavioral Health Centers.
“The Department of Mental Health is committed to supporting mental health needs across our state,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
After facing sharp backlash in the weeks following her budget proposal announcement in January, Healey decided to halt plans to close a Cape Cod psychiatric hospital and a Canton children’s rehab hospital. Working groups of stakeholders have convened to look into the future of both facilities.
An online petition urging the state to restore the “major cuts” to DMH’s youth and family services said losing the intensive residential treatment programs would “put entire families at risk.”
“This loss would force children to ‘board’ at home while waiting for the proper level of care,” the petition states, “affect schools, increase court involvement, and result in more lives lost to suicide. It will drive Emergency Room boarding back up.”
