Restore DMH's Child, Youth & Family Budget FY26
Restore DMH's Child, Youth & Family Budget FY26
The Issue
Join us and sign this petition to DEMAND the Children, Youth & Family MA Department of Mental Health (DMH) budget be RESTORED to FY25 funding levels.
The cuts resulting from the proposed budget will have a devastating impact on children, youth, and families across the entire Commonwealth.
If you are a parent or caregiver of a child or youth with mental health challenges, you know how hard it is.
Since COVID, access to and availability of appropriate mental health services has declined while the need and acuity have increased.
- Losing 2 out of 4 adolescent Intensive Residential Treatment Programs, and the only age 6-12 Residential Treatment Program in the state, would put entire families at risk. This loss would force children to “board” at home while waiting for the proper level of care, affect schools, increase court involvement, and result in more lives lost to suicide. It will drive Emergency Room (ED) boarding back up at a time when the state’s work is paying off and further traumatize children and youth.
- Proposed cuts to community-based supports such as “FLEX” services (which includes the successful ED Diversion program), and the home-based PACT-Y services (which rolled out at substantial cost only 2 years ago) will also put more children, youth, and families at risk, force children and youth from their homes and communities, and land them back in EDs and unnecessary group homes- waiting for help.
- If 50% of DMH case managers are eliminated, as proposed, all DMH families will be hurt. This drastic elimination of case managers will directly harm the most vulnerable children and youth. Many families who need case managers now don't have them.
- Closing the Pocassett Mental Health Center - the only DMH psychiatric hospital on the Cape.
For families, DMH is not the solution of first resort. It is their last hope in a long line of disappointments for their child - some who have the highest needs in the state and who are the very people DMH is supposed to help. Fewer people to help families navigate, fewer services to keep kids home, and fewer places to go if they need to is a no-win situation.
1,230
The Issue
Join us and sign this petition to DEMAND the Children, Youth & Family MA Department of Mental Health (DMH) budget be RESTORED to FY25 funding levels.
The cuts resulting from the proposed budget will have a devastating impact on children, youth, and families across the entire Commonwealth.
If you are a parent or caregiver of a child or youth with mental health challenges, you know how hard it is.
Since COVID, access to and availability of appropriate mental health services has declined while the need and acuity have increased.
- Losing 2 out of 4 adolescent Intensive Residential Treatment Programs, and the only age 6-12 Residential Treatment Program in the state, would put entire families at risk. This loss would force children to “board” at home while waiting for the proper level of care, affect schools, increase court involvement, and result in more lives lost to suicide. It will drive Emergency Room (ED) boarding back up at a time when the state’s work is paying off and further traumatize children and youth.
- Proposed cuts to community-based supports such as “FLEX” services (which includes the successful ED Diversion program), and the home-based PACT-Y services (which rolled out at substantial cost only 2 years ago) will also put more children, youth, and families at risk, force children and youth from their homes and communities, and land them back in EDs and unnecessary group homes- waiting for help.
- If 50% of DMH case managers are eliminated, as proposed, all DMH families will be hurt. This drastic elimination of case managers will directly harm the most vulnerable children and youth. Many families who need case managers now don't have them.
- Closing the Pocassett Mental Health Center - the only DMH psychiatric hospital on the Cape.
For families, DMH is not the solution of first resort. It is their last hope in a long line of disappointments for their child - some who have the highest needs in the state and who are the very people DMH is supposed to help. Fewer people to help families navigate, fewer services to keep kids home, and fewer places to go if they need to is a no-win situation.
1,230
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Petition created on February 13, 2025