No One’s Priority: The Plight of Children with Serious Mental Disorders in Medicaid Systems
A report on Six Focus Groups in Two States

According to the United States Surgeon General, as many as 11 percent of all children in the United States have a mental disorder that significantly impairs their day-to-day functioning. With a quarter of the country’s children enrolled in Medicaid, the program has become an extremely important source of funding of all public health care for children and now provides half of all spending on public mental health systems.

No One's Priority, released in Winter 2003, examines whether Medicaid-eligible children in two states that had expanded the array of services listed in their state Medicaid plans were, in fact, receiving an expanded range of mental health services. The report is available in browser friendly HTML format (below) and printer-friendly PDF format. You will need the free Acrobat Reader to view and print the PDF file.

• Read the Report (Table of Contents)
• Acknowledgments
• Purchasing Printed Copies of the Report
• State Focus Group Reports

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Services Listed in Each State’s Medicaid Plan
• The Parents’ View
• Implications for Public Policy
  
• Recommendations
  • Access to effective home- and community-based services
  • Mobile crisis teams
  • Early intervention
  • Education of and participation by parents
  • School-based identification and services
  • Interagency collaboration
  • Coordination of case management
  • Parents’ involvement in policy decision

• Conclusion
• Notes
• Appendix: Focus Group Methodology

Acknowledgments

The Bazelon Center wishes to thank all parents who participated in the focus groups and the two collaborating organizations, Families Together in New York State, Inc. and the Oregon Family Support Network (OFSN), for their assistance with the focus groups. This report was prepared by the Bazelon Center with funding from the W.T. Grant Foundation, supplemented through the Bazelon Center’s general program with support by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The content of the report does not necessarily reflect the views of the funders.

Prepared by Chris Koyanagi, Policy Director and Rafael Semansky, Senior Policy Analyst
Edited by Christopher Burley and Lee Carty
Designed by Christopher Burley

For more information on this report, please contact Rafael Semansky at 202-467-5730 x 123 or by e-mail at rafaels@bazelon.org.

© Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, Winter 2003

Purchasing this Report
Paper copies of No One’s Priority may be purchased for $12 each. No One’s Priority and the two state reports may be purchased as a package for $30 (shipping and handling included) from the Bazelon Center’s online bookstore or by sending a check or money order to:

Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
ATTN: Publications Desk
1101 15th Street, NW
Suite 1212
Washington, DC 20005

State Focus Group Reports

State focus group reports are available for free download in PDF format or can be puchased from the Bazelon Center's online bookstore.You will need the free Acrobat Reader to view and print the PDF file.

• Oregon (December 2002)
• New York (Feb. 2003)