Health Care Strategies to Help Children Heal From Trauma
Expansion of School-Based Health Services in California: An Opportunity for More Trauma-Informed Care for Children, is a brief that describes a new opportunity for California to leverage federal funding to provide physical, mental, and behavioral health services in schools to Medicaid-enrolled students experiencing trauma and violence. It explains a newly approved Medicaid State Plan Amendment (SPA) that allows school districts – known as local education agencies (LEAs) – to access more federal funding for school-based health services. The SPA expands the ability of LEAs to seek federal reimbursement for school-based health services in three important ways: (1) all Medicaid-enrolled children are now covered; (2) more types of services are now covered; and (3) more types of providers are now covered. This brief also provides recommendations for partners on ways to advocate for increased trauma-informed care and services in schools and it lifts up the role of Medicaid as an important source of financing for these services. Trauma-informed care is one strategy to help advance education and health equity and ensure that children and families recover from trauma caused by violence and pervasive bias. Futures Without Violence worked in partnership with the Healthy Schools Campaign to develop this brief.
Health Care Payment and Delivery System Reform for Children as a Tool to Improve the Health of Vulnerable Communities urges policymakers to recognize the long-term health, social, and economic benefits of upstream investments for children, including those who have experienced trauma, violence or severe adversity, and to fully include children in health care payment and delivery system reform. This paper examines the reasons children have been left out of current delivery system reform efforts, discusses existing and promising payment reform models and approaches, and makes recommendations for policymakers to develop and scale up payment models that make investments in evidence-based interventions that address the social factors in early childhood that drive long-term health outcomes. Futures Without Violence worked in partnership with Families USA to develop this paper.
