Earlier this week, we gathered for breakfast at the Mercer County Boathouse with the many experts who served on our Children’s Mental Health Mapping Advisory Committee, along with child and family advocates, educators, funders, and clinicians, to celebrate the release of the report and discuss next steps to ensure implementation of the recommendations.

At the breakfast we hosted a panel with Kate Shamszad, Vice President of Policy, and Julie DeSimone, Vice President of Community Health at the Quality Institute, along with Ross Whiting, PhD, SEL4NJ. The panel members provided an overview of the report and recommendations, and then discussed the report findings with attendees.

The topics and themes that drew the most discussion were the following:

Access to Data – Participants asked questions about how we found the data for the report and how having a better understanding of the current needs and services will improve the children’s mental health system.  We also discussed the need for further outcomes data on many of the programs that the state currently funds.

We cannot improve what we cannot measure. Today, New Jersey’s data on children’s mental health exists across multiple state agencies, insurers, licensing boards, providers, and public systems. But there is no unified place to view, track, and use it to make informed improvements in our state. And much of the data is incomplete or missing critical detail.  For example, licensing data does not show whether a provider sees children or adults or even whether they are actively seeing clients in NJ. By creating a unified data dashboard, we would enable policymakers to improve the data that is collected to identify gaps, monitor progress, and make informed decisions.  This dashboard is about connecting existing data, not creating unnecessary new reporting requirements. Better data leads to better investments. A data dashboard would help the State identify where workforce shortages exist, where waitlists are growing, where residential capacity is insufficient, and where children face the greatest barriers to care, and use this data to proactively and strategically target areas for impact and improvement.

Supporting Schools in Supporting Their Students’ Mental Health – Attendees also asked a lot of questions about the role of schools, especially in communities where the families and the school personnel are experiencing external challenges that create stress or trauma. Schools have a major role to play in supporting children’s mental health, as school is the place where children spend most of their day. While mental health education is needed for everyone who works in schools, teachers need to be able to focus on teaching and require support from other trained personnel and resources in the school for addressing specific mental health care needs.

All the participants who spoke up expressed the need for clarity on what revisions to NJ4S would look like and want the chance to provide their expertise on the future of the model or any changes to be made.  Some discussed the need for services in elementary schools, which NJ4S does not currently serve.  The need for services in languages other than English was also raised.

Finally, we highlighted the findings in the report around the need for uniform guidance and models for how mental health evaluations for school clearance are accessed, ideally in community settings rather than busy emergency rooms.

Workforce Stability Matters – Many in the room are mental health providers or work with mental health agencies and expressed the need for support. They shared that turnover is high because the work is hard. If we don’t create the conditions for providers to enter and stay in this field and treat children long-term, every other recommendation becomes harder to implement. They also emphasized that the need is particularly urgent for communities who speak languages other than English, and those who have other health needs.

We discussed the range of options in the workforce and emphasized the need for those with lived experience, including peer counseling and community health workers, and ways to financially support these programs to make them sustainable.

The pressures on families right now are significant. Federal cuts to SNAP and Medicaid, and immigration policy changes are placing further stress on families in New Jersey and State resources. These stresses require greater collaboration and alignment across organizations to ensure people continue to receive needed services and programs are meaningful.

If you have not yet had a chance to review the report and its 17 recommendations, we encourage you to read them. Also, please share them with your networks. A special thank you again to the Advisory Committee members who helped to shape this work and represent some of the most influential voices in New Jersey’s health care and mental health landscape.