NJAMHAA-FY23-Annual-Report

22 Breaking Barriers in Behavioral Health Care Children’s Practice Group and its SBYSP Subcommittee Co-Chairs Mary Jo Buchanan, MPA, LCSW NJAMHAA Board Secretary and CEO/ Executive Director, Ocean Partnership for Children; Michelle Carlamere, LCSW Director, Outpatient and Community Services, Oaks Integrated Care Alan DeStefano, MSW NJAMHAA Board Member and Executive Director, Cape Atlantic Integrated Network for Kids The Children’s Practice Group includes representatives from PerformCare and the Juvenile Justice Commission who provide updates at every meeting, and frequently hosts guests from the state government and the behavioral healthcare field. In July, Nicki Francis, Coordinator of Program and Professional Development, Wellspring Center for Prevention, gave a presentation on the impact of legalization of marijuana on youth and children’s services. In September, leaders from the Department of Children and Families (DCF) — Commissioner Christine Beyer, First Deputy Commissioner Kathrine Stoehr and Assistant Commissioner Mollie Greene — met with the group to discuss issues of funding availability and specific allocations, expansion of the substance use treatment network, backlogs in emergency departments and the state’s exit from oversight by the Federal Monitor. In March, Kaitlin Mulcahy, PhD, LPC, IMHE- E ® , Director, Center for Autism and Early Childhood Mental Health, College of Education and Human Services, Montclair State University, presented on infant and early childhood mental health and shared resources for members to access for workforce development and for coaching around specific situations. Michal Divney, LCSW, Human Dimension & Community Programs Manager and Instructor, Family Medicine and Lawrence Rosen, MD, Assistant Director of the Human Dimension Course and Associate Professor in Pediatrics from Hackensack Meridian Health School of Medicine, spoke briefly on their Human Dimension Community Mental Health Initiatives and School Collaborations . In May, the Children’s Practice Group hosted Dr. Dara Kass, Region II Regional Director, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, for a discussion on school based services, and Michal Divney returned to address the group’s School Based Youth Services Program (SBYSP) Subcommittee, which was created in 2020 to focus on much-needed advocacy when funding for these long-standing, extremely effective programs were at risk of being removed from the state budget. This subcommittee, as well as students, parents, school faculty and staff, and other stakeholders succeeded in having the funding restored in the revised FY2021 State Budget and everyone is now advocating to ensure that SBYSPs continue to be preserved and funded to avoid disruptions to students and communities currently served as the new NJ Statewide Student Support Services (NJ4S) program is being developed.