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Can you tell us about some of
your current projects that pertain to disconnected youth issues?
The Mental
Health Program is interested in increasing access to services for target
populations that we believe are those that have the highest risk of
mental illness or substance abuse and often have the least access to
services. Among those populations are low-income groups, minority groups,
and children and youth who are in the child welfare or juvenile justice
system. Our largest project is the Healthy Returns Initiative, launched
in 2005, in which we are working with five county probation departments
in California to help them increase their capacity to work with children
with mental health problems while they are in detention, and to link them
to services when they return to the community. In its first year, over
350 young people received services.
Another set of grants we have
made is through the Juvenile Law Center. We are the lead funder of the
Girls Health Screening Project. It is groundbreaking work that has done
research around the health needs of girls in the juvenile justice system.
Girls are a growing proportion of the juvenile justice system and we
realize that juvenile halls aren’t set up for girls. The screening
project has taken a look at what’s known out there and developed a screening
tool about their health needs. This will lead to girls getting more
responsive health services while in detention, and will inform policy.
Additionally, we are working
with Youth Law Center specifically related to policy issues in California
about insurance coverage for youth in the juvenile justice system. Most
counties in California will terminate Medicare benefits when kids are
incarcerated instead of suspending eligibility. When the young person
comes out they have to start all over again to get Medicaid (Medi-Cal)
reinstated, which is, of course, a real barrier to services, and shifts
health costs to counties. The Youth Law Center has trained probation
departments around the state on how to understand the policy and work
with it to ensure that detainees are covered as soon as possible and
increase reimbursement for services in detention. They have also been
working with the Department of Health Services to encourage policy
change.
We also have made a cluster of
grants that are more related to youth in the child welfare system such as
LA Youth News, Youth Radio, and Youth Outlook, which are all youth-led
multi-media outlets. Our work with them is to support their work in
lifting up voice of youth in the foster care system about their
experience specifically around health and mental health.
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