To address matters raised by the original safe haven law, the Nebraska Legislature last spring created or expanded programs aimed at helping more of the estimated 90,000 Nebraska families that have children with behavioral health problems.
As of July 1, the behavioral health education center was created at the University of Nebraska Medical Center to add psychiatry residents and training and to study what the needs are statewide. Annual cost: $1.3 million
Beginning Sept. 1, the Kids Connection health insurance program's income limit was raised from 185 percent to 200 percent of the federal poverty level. That added coverage for more than 5,000 children to the 23,500 kids already served. Annual cost: $8.5 million
Additional programs starting Jan. 1:
• Family navigator program
What: Parents of children with behavioral health problems will help other families get services
Who: Estimated 360 families a month
Annual cost: $1 million
• Children's behavioral health help line
What: 24-hour hot line to connect families to services
Who: Estimated 1,800 calls a month
Annual cost: $1.7 million
• Post-adoption/guardianship services
What: Case managers will help adoptive parents and guardians of former state wards to keep families together. (Almost half of the adults using the safe haven law were adoptive parents or guardians of former wards.)
Who: 3,490 adoptions and 983 guardianships meet the criteria
Annual cost: $1.5 million
• Behavioral health programs
What: Expansion of services, including Professional Partner program, which helps youths with serious behavioral disorders to stay at home
One-time cost: $1.5 million
Helping themselves
Families that met while giving input for safe haven legislation created a group called Family Advocacy Movement.
It is sponsoring a conference Oct. 3 called “Safe Haven Revisited: Mental Health, Child Protection and Civil Rights, A Call for Reform” in Omaha.
Featured speaker is Karl Dennis, a pioneer in providing “wraparound” services, or those that help families deal with challenging children while keeping them at home.
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
