Washington State House of Representatives Office of Program Research	BILL ANALYSIS
Juvenile Justice Committee

HB 1913

Brief Description:  Creating a demonstration project to provide services to disturbed youth.

Sponsors:  Representative Boldt.

Brief Summary of Bill

$Requires the Secretary of the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to jointly contract with an organization using private and public funding to implement a blended funding demonstration project to serve youth with serious emotional and/or behavioral disturbances.

Hearing Date:  2/20/01

Staff:  Deborah Frazier (786‑7152).

Background: 

Serving children with serious emotional disturbances, who require intensive services from multiple service systems, has typically been accomplished by each service system funding and providing services separately, with little or no coordination or collaboration with the other service systems.  The service systems usually involved with these children are: education; child welfare; mental health; alcohol and drug; and juvenile rehabilitation.

This approach places parents, guardians, or custodians of the child in the position of trying to understand multiple funding streams, eligibility requirements and program limitations and, managing relationships with multiple entities.

Pilot programs are underway in the states to address the complex needs of these children through blended funding.  Under this approach, each service system for which the child is eligible contributes funding to the care of the child.  The total funding is managed by one entity that works with each service system's administrative requirements.

Summary of Bill: 

The Legislature finds that new approaches are needed to serve youth with serious emotional and/or behavioral disturbances, and, that an organization has secured private funding to be combined with public funding to implement a blended funding demonstration project for these youth. 

The Secretary of the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) and the Superintendent of Public Instruction are required to jointly contract with the organization to test new approaches to serving these youth.  The DSHS is given primary responsibility to negotiate the agreement.  Both agencies are instructed to transfer existing appropriations to support the demonstration project.  Both agencies are instructed to seek any necessary federal waivers and to exercise their existing authority to the extent necessary to implement the blended funding demonstration project.

The demonstration project is described.  The project will serve at least 27 youth for two years in a residential setting and is required to serve them at a lower cost than traditional approaches.  The project will be evaluated based on the individual outcomes of the youth served, and is required to compare the results of these youth with the results of a similar cohort of children receiving traditional services in a residential setting.

Appropriation:  None.

Fiscal Note:  Requested on February 13, 2001.

Effective Date:  The bill takes effect on July 1, 2001.