Family services will hire key people with U.S. grant

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Monday, Oct. 11, 2004 | 9:04 a.m.

The state agency overseeing children and families is getting a $3.7 million federal grant to help solve problems in treating mentally ill children and youth that were outlined in recent federal, state and local reviews.

The grant, spread out over five years, will pay the salaries of five people, said Jone Bosworth, administrator of the division of child and family services.

Their duties will range from avoiding mistakes such as those made during the last two years that resulted in the state not billing $6.2 million worth of Medicaid reimbursements, to overseeing the hiring of more counselors who can speak Spanish, she said.

The money will also help pay for hiring consultants and training people, said Diane Comeaux, deputy administrator for the agency.

"We've looked at our vulnerabilities and said, how do we get federal money to address them?," Bosworth said. The total budget for mental health in Bosworth's agency is currently about $25 million, most of which comes from federal sources.

But Donna Coleman, director of the Children's Advocacy Alliance, a nonprofit group that has monitored the state's response to a federal review done earlier this year, said she was "cynical" about the usefulness of the grant, adding, "if you don't know the racehorse, look at the racing form."

Coleman said the federal review pointed out that many children in the state's care are not being assessed for mental health needs, and that those who are assessed often don't receive adequate services.

"All I know is, kids aren't getting enough services, and I hope this grant isn't creating more useless bureaucracy," she said.

But Comeaux, the state agency's deputy administrator, said "providing services was not the purpose of the grant."

Money for hiring more people to deliver mental health services to children and youth will be sought in the 2005 Legislature, she said.

The grant, meanwhile, will be spent on:

Kathryn Landreth, legal counsel for Metro Police and chairwoman of the Clark County Children's Mental Health Consortium, a group that released a plan in July recommending improvements to the state, said, "This begins to meet some of our concerns."

The July plan referred to data-gathering, for example.

"One of the problems with assessing the need for behavioral health services and how well that need is met is the lack of" data about the services, costs and results, the report noted.

One of the five positions the grant will pay for is called "performance management coordinator." That job will include organizing groups to evaluate services, as well as gathering data, reporting to the state and federal government and planning for the future, Bosworth said.

Landreth said it has been difficult to get state money to hire more people to oversee children's mental health because of the competition for that money.

Comeaux said the first year of the federal grant will break down into about $330,000 on salaries, $108,000 on benefits, $195,000 on consultants and $100,000 on training, travel and supplies.

As for what will be done when the five-year period expires, she said she hopes the state will be able to continue the work.

"The positions (paid for with the grant) were created to help make system changes," she said.