Campaign for Children's Mental Health Petition

 

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To: Governor McDonnell, Members of the Virginia General Assembly and State Administrators

As Virginia residents, we believe that all of our state’s children who suffer from mental health disorders deserve access to appropriate, timely and high quality treatment and support.

As a state that values family and children, Virginia should become a leader in children’s mental health treatment. To achieve this goal, we ask you to take three steps:

1. Invest in children’s mental health so that all young Virginians can access four basic mental health treatment services in their own communities:
• psychiatric services
• case management
• crisis response services
• high quality in-home services

2. Develop a plan for a comprehensive system for all children with serious mental and emotional disorders who need health services from the state. Our fragmented system is confusing to families and costly to taxpayers.

3. Listen to children and families. All professionals working with children need to recognize that patients and their families need to be a part of the treatment team. Our state must put in place strategies that acknowledge that children and their families are experts on their own treatment needs.

Thank you for making children’s mental health a priority in Virginia as you prepare for the upcoming budget cycle and 2012 legislative session.