Introduction
This guide is intended to support local education agencies (LEAs) and county behavioral health departments (BHDs) as they partner to deliver comprehensive, high-quality school mental health services for California students. These collaborative efforts can be challenging, and although helpful information and tools exist, they are spread out in many different places.
The goal of this resource is to create a library of accessible tools organized around critical topics and challenges. Each section includes an overview of the topic and a collection of related resources. A glossary below is included for your convenience.
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| AB 114, Special Education Transition | Signed in 2011, this law ended the state mandate on county mental health agencies to provide mental health services to students with disabilities. After the passage of AB 114, school districts are solely responsible for ensuring that students with disabilities receive special education and related services, including some services previously arranged for or provided by county mental health agencies. In some cases, school districts still contract with counties, or county-contracted providers, to provide mental health services to special education students. |
| CMAA = County Medicaid Administrative Activities | Participating local governmental agencies are eligible to receive Federal reimbursement for the cost of performing administrative activities that directly support efforts to identify and enroll potentially eligible individuals into Medi-Cal, and to remove barriers to Medi-Cal services. Eligible activities include outreach to the general population and high-risk populations, facilitating Medi-Cal applications, contracting for Medi-Cal services, and program planning and policy development. |
| CYBHI = Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative | Five-year, multi-billion dollar state initiative launched in 2021 to create a more integrated, youth-centered system of support that allows youth to find mental health and substance use needs where, when and in the way they need it. CYBHI is comprised of over 20 workstreams, and includes programs focused on California’s behavioral health workforce, ecosystem infrastructure, health coverage, and public awareness. |
| EPSDT = Early Periodic Screening Diagnosis and Treatment | An enhanced Medicaid benefit that requires states to screen for and provide services necessary to ameliorate physical and mental health conditions for all persons under age 21 who are eligible. Under EPSDT, young people who qualify for full scope Medi-Cal (or Medicaid) with mental health conditions that meet medical necessity are entitled to services including, but not limited to, the following: mental health assessment, collateral contacts, therapy, rehabilitation, mental health services, medication support services, day rehabilitation, day treatment intensive, crisis intervention/stabilization, targeted case management, and therapeutic behavioral services. |
| EPSDT Specialty Mental Health | Refers to the “moderate to severe” Medi-Cal mental health benefits that county behavioral health agencies are responsible. Medi-Cal Managed Care Organizations (MCOs, i.e. health plans) are largely responsible for the rest of the EPSDT benefit for beneficiaries under age 21. |
| ERMHS = Educationally Related Mental Health Services | These services are provided when special education students have significant social, emotional and/or behavioral needs that impede their ability to benefit from their special education services, supports, and placement. Services must be included in the Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) and can include individual counseling, parent counseling, social work services, psychological services, and residential treatment. |
| IEP = Individualized Education Plan | This is a plan or program developed to ensure that a child with an identified disability who is attending an elementary or secondary educational institution receives specialized instruction and related services. |
| ISF = Interconnected Systems Framework | A structure and process to integrate Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and School Mental Health within school systems. The goal is to blend resources, training, systems, data, and practices in order to improve outcomes for all children and youth. |
| LCAP = Local Control Accountability Plan | A tool for local educational agencies (LEAs) to set goals, plan actions, and leverage resources to meet those goals to improve student outcomes. The plan is aligned with state funding that LEAs receive to achieve those goals and support the overall functioning of the LEA. |
| LEA = Local Education Agency | A local entity involved in education including but not limited to school districts, county offices of education, direct-funded charter schools, and special education local plan area (SELPA). |
| MHSA = Mental Health Services Act | Created in 2004 with the passage of Proposition 63, which levied a 1 percent tax on personal income above $1 million. MHSA provides the state’s second largest public funding stream for mental health services, after Medi-Cal. MHSA programs and services are intended to enhance, rather than replace, existing programs. A majority of MHSA funding goes to counties and counties are required to submit three-year program and expenditure plans and annual updates. |
| MHSSA = Mental Health Student Services Act | Funded by the Mental Health Services Act, MHSSA provides grants for partnerships between county mental health agencies and local education agencies to deliver school-based mental health services to young people and their families. |
| MOU = Memorandum of Understanding | An agreement between two parties that is not legally binding, but which outlines the responsibilities of each of the parties to the agreement. These agreements may describe the relationship between counties, LEAs, and community provider(s) and outline the responsibilities and expectations of partnerships between the various entities. |
| MTSS = Multi-Tiered System of Support | An integrated, comprehensive framework that focuses on Common Core State Standards, core instruction, differentiated learning, student-centered learning, individualized student needs, and the alignment of systems necessary for all students’ academic, behavioral, and social success. |
| PEI = Prevention and Early Intervention | One of five categories of expenditures in MHSA. This category is intended to fund programs and services that intervene early prior to the development of serious mental health issues and catch mental health issues in their earliest stages to prevent long-term suffering. PEI programs emphasize strategies to reduce negative outcomes that may result from untreated mental illness: suicide, incarcerations, school failure or dropout, unemployment, prolonged suffering, homelessness, and removal of children from their homes. |
| PBIS = Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports | A framework for enhancing the adoption and implementation of a continuum of evidence-based interventions to achieve academically and behaviorally important outcomes for all students. As a “framework,” the emphasis is on a process or approach, rather than a curriculum, intervention, or practice. The “continuum” notion emphasizes how evidence- or research-based behavioral practices are organized within a multi-tiered system of support. |
| SELPA = Special Education Local Plan Area | Consortiums in geographical regions with sufficient size and scope to provide for all special education service needs of children residing within the region boundaries. Each region develops a local plan describing how it would provide special education services. SELPAs vary in size: some serve just one school district, some serve multiple school districts, some serve an entire county. |
| SBHIP = Student Behavioral Health Incentive Program | A workstream of CYBHI, SBHIP was launched in CY 2022 and funding concludes in December 2024. SBHIP provides financial incentives to increase coordination among Medi-Cal managed care plans and local education agencies to improve access to and delivery of mental health services. |
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