This piece was written for American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) News and is re-posted here.
As AACAP members know well, children and youth face unique challenges with mental health, and access to care is critically important. One in every 5 young people have major depressive episodes in any given year. More than three million of young people do not receive treatment for these mental health challenges, and thirteen percent of them report experiencing serious thoughts of suicide.
While these statistics are startling, there are many organizations whose goals align with AACAP’s and are working diligently to protect and advance the mental health and wellbeing of children, adolescents, and families. Stakeholders regularly draw on AACAP’s expertise to advance pediatric mental health across many stakeholders, and AACAP’s Healthcare Access and Economics Committee promotes equitable access to high quality psychiatric services for children, adolescents, and their families through collaboration with stakeholders like the Association for Behavioral Health and Wellness (ABHW).
ABHW serves as the national voice for health plans that provide behavioral health insurance benefits to two hundred million people and is dedicated to ensuring better outcomes for wholeperson care for communities and individuals, including children and youth. ABHW recently published a report, The State of Children and Youth Behavioral Health: Solutions by Congress, the Administration, and Health Plans, and hosted its annual Advancing Behavioral Health and Policy Summit that covered timely children and youth behavioral health topics. ABHW’s leadership includes ABHW President and CEO Debbie Witchey, who joined ABHW in October 2024, and board members who are leaders and executives from ABHW’s member health plans.
“Solutions to improving children and youth behavioral health are not siloed,” said Witchey. “We value our partnership with AACAP, which provides a wealth of expertise and resources to address the children and youth behavioral health crisis we currently face and is a convener of stakeholders engaged in moving the needle on this issue. In working with organizations like AACAP, we see a mutual commitment to advance solutions, and we must work together to harness these shared goals to truly make an impact.”
ABHW’s Advancing Behavioral Health and Policy Summit, held in October 2024, coalesced on key challenges, identified member efforts, and brought attention to policy opportunities. AACAP—represented by Karen Ferguson, Deputy Director of Clinical Practice, and Alexis Horan, Chief of Advocacy and Practice Transformation— were invited as subject matter experts to facilitate a session titled “Innovative Strategies for Facing the Children and Youth Mental Health Crisis.” Kelly Vaillancourt Strobach, Director of Policy and Advocacy at the National Association of School Psychologists, co-led this session.
This session focused on the role schools and parents play in children and youth behavioral health, how to address individual student behavioral health needs, and policy solutions to enhance opportunities to improve behavioral health care for kids, meeting them where they are. In this interactive opportunity to provide their ideas for how schools could support children and youth mental health.
ABHW also emphasized the ways maternal mental health contributes to the well-being of children, youth, and families. It’s impossible to discuss the mental health of children without focusing on the full range of mental health needs of the birthing population, pre- and post-natal and parental health through the lifespan. The panel session, “Closing the Maternal Mental Health Care Gap: From Awareness to Action,” on which Deborah Fernandez-Turner, Deputy Chief Psychiatric Officer at Aetna, a CVS Health Company, and ABHW Board Treasurer spoke, raised important questions regarding maternal mental health awareness and the work that still needs to be done, as well as underlined measures that are currently being taken to support people facing maternal mental health challenges. To have the greatest positive impact on youth mental health, we must concurrently address disparities and the needs of the whole family.
The mental health of children, youth, and families are of particular concern to health plans, and they support innovative ideas to increase access to behavioral health care, including the integration of mental health and substance use disorder care with primary care and school-based care.
ABHW’s The State of Children and Youth Behavioral Health report that was disseminated at the summit dives further into recent efforts by health plans to improve quality and access to care for children and youth. The report underscores the importance of early intervention and access to comprehensive, evidence-based care for positive long-term outcomes. The report also features ABHW members’ programs and initiatives to help improve children and youth behavioral health in the areas of:
- Behavioral health workforce
- School-based mental health
- Digital health care
- Suicide prevention and crisis services
One example included in the report is Aetna’s work with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) to provide contracted pediatric providers the opportunity to enroll in the American Academy of Pediatrics Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO), which is a cost-free program to participating pediatric practices and offers complimentary continuing medical education (CME) credit.
The prevalence of mental health challenges among children and youth requires our urgent attention. ABHW’s Advancing Behavioral Health and Policy Summit and its report on the current state of children and youth behavioral health demonstrate the robust positive impact we can have when stakeholders work together to effectively address and improve children and youth behavioral health. As a first step, we encourage AACAP members to learn more about ABHW and read ABHW’s The State of Children and Youth Behavioral Health report to explore the innovative activities that ABHW members are engaging in to help meet the behavioral health needs of children and adolescents as well as policy recommendations.
If you have thoughts about collaborative efforts with ABHW and its health plan members, contact the leadership of the AACAP Committee on Healthcare Access and Economics by emailing AACAP Deputy Director of Clinical Practice, Karen Ferguson, at kferguson@aacap.org.
Deborah Fernandez-Turner, DO, DFAACAP, CHIE is an AACAP member, ABHW Board Treasurer, and Deputy Chief Psychiatric Officer at Aetna.
Alan Axelson, MD, DLF (AACAP & APA), member of the AACAP Committee on Healthcare Access & Economics and National Director of Medical Strategy & Innovation for Transformations Care Network.
