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Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry Proposes Innovative Children’s Mental Health Access Network to Bring Care to All Kids in California

Source: Lake County Record-Bee

SACRAMENTO— On Wednesday, Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D-Winters) introduced Assembly Bill 2464, which creates and funds the establishment of a Children’s Mental Health Access Network to ensure that all California doctors and allied health professionals caring for youth have access to specialty mental healthcare services, regardless of their location. Many children and adolescents’ mental health needs could be effectively managed in a primary care setting, but their pediatric primary care providers currently lack the specialized training and resources they need. This bill utilizes existing health technology and collaboration between providers to solve the problem.

“Too many of our children are in crisis, and the lack of trained mental health professionals is an enormous contributor,” said Aguiar-Curry. “We must continue efforts to recruit and train new specialty mental health professionals, but we must also act now to connect children’s primary care providers with mental health experts.  By using telehealth and provider-to-provider consultation, we can make children’s mental health services accessible throughout California today.”

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