Pritzker launches initiative to improve behavioral health services for children
Pritzker aims to improve behavioral health services for children
In an effort to build on the administration’s funding increases for child welfare and wellbeing, on Friday, Governor J.B. Pritzker announced the Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative to evaluate and redesign the delivery of behavioral health services for children and adolescents in Illinois.
CHICAGO - In an effort to build on the administration’s funding increases for child welfare and wellbeing, on Friday, Governor J.B. Pritzker announced the Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative to evaluate and redesign the delivery of behavioral health services for children and adolescents in Illinois.
According to a news release from Pritzker's office, the governor tasked the Initiative with building a coordinated, inter-agency approach to ensure young people with significant behavioral health needs to receive the community and residential services they need to thrive while providing parents, guardians, and family members with transparency and clarity in the process.
"I’m launching the Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative to evaluate and redesign the systems that support our most vulnerable kids and adolescents – so that down the line, Illinois families will be better able to access holistic, wraparound support for children in need," said Governor JB Pritzker. "Under the leadership of nationally recognized child welfare expert Dana Weiner, PhD, and six state agency heads, this Initiative will deliver a transformative blueprint by the end of the year."
The initiative will provide a transformation blueprint by the end of 2022. Pritzker also named Chapin Hall child welfare expert Dana Weiner, PhD, as Director of the Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative.
"Illinois has a strong foundation on which to build; we need an intentional, coordinated strategy that leverages the strengths of our human service agencies, providers and communities to provide families with consistent, accessible, transparent solutions to the challenges they face," Weiner said. "We can do better for our children and families – we must do better."