Wisconsin Lawmakers Propose Dozens of Mental Health Care Bills
Nine by Democratic state Rep. Robyn Vining, most aiming to help minors.
Wisconsin State Capitol. Photo by Dave Reid.
A Wisconsin mother who lost her daughter to suicide is urging lawmakers to make it easier to get mental health treatment for older teens.
A bill she believes would do that is one of more than a dozen pending bills focused on expanding mental health access across the state.
Julie Elfers of Cottage Grove told legislators her story when the Assembly Committee on Mental Health and Substance Abuse Prevention held public hearings on five mental health care bills last week.
Those bills largely center on youth mental health, including the consent of minors who are 14 years or older for mental health treatment, safety plans for children and emergency detention plans for youth.
Last spring, Elfers’ 17-year-old daughter, Brooke, asked to see a doctor to start antidepressants. That is when Elfers learned Brooke had attempted suicide.
Brooke’s doctor sent the family to the emergency room.
“She truly wanted to feel better, but what happened at the ER completely changed that,” Elfers said. “She waited for hours, she had no privacy and honestly, it felt like no one there cared.”
The resident physician told the family Brooke would be OK, because they were “good parents,” Elfers said.
Elfers and her husband wanted Brooke to be committed. But under current law, if a minor is age 14 or older, both the minor’s and the parent’s mutual consent are required for outpatient or inpatient mental health treatment.
Brooke refused treatment and was discharged with a safety plan.
“We followed that plan and we made the calls,” Elfers said. “We got on the waiting list and we did everything we were told to do. It wasn’t enough.”
Just one month after Brooke’s emergency room visit, she died by suicide.
Elfers is supporting a bill that revises that consent to allow either the minor or the parent to consent to outpatient or inpatient mental health treatment.
“Our current laws made it impossible for us to get her the help we needed,” Elfers said. “We were her parents, we saw the signs and we begged. But we were powerless.”
That consent bill is just one of many proposals from lawmakers this spring focused on mental health issues. The majority of the legislation focuses on youth, who continue to face significant mental health challenges including high rates of depression, anxiety and self-harm, according to surveys.
The wide-ranging proposals include requiring health insurance companies to cover mental health visits, increasing funding to school districts for mental health services, and providing grants to racial minority groups to become school social workers.
But many of the bills are likely to face an uphill battle.
Previous efforts to regulate the insurance industry have failed.
And federal political efforts to dismantle or significantly alter diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are underway.
Wisconsin schools losing $8M in federal mental health grants after Trump administration decision
Still, state Rep. Robyn Vining, D-Wauwatosa, said she’s committed to fighting for mental health access, especially as mental health funding and services are cut at the state and federal levels.
Vining introduced nine bills on Monday she has dubbed the “Mental Healthcare is Healthcare” package.
The bills are in addition to one she introduced last week that would train mental health professionals on the rights of LGBTQ+ youth.
“At a time when we have both a $4B+ state surplus, and a tremendous rainy day fund, the Wisconsin legislature has the opportunity to step up to meet this moment and address the mental health needs of Wisconsinites,” Vining said in a statement.
Vining’s bills include:
- Requiring health insurance to cover mental health visits
- Awarding school-based mental health grants to school districts
- Expanding state aid for schools to hire mental health professionals
- Paying prospective school social workers during their internship
- Providing grants to racial minority groups to become school social workers
- Providing grants to schools to hire racially diverse mental health professionals
- Training teachers in Social and Emotional Learning
- Bringing more federal Medicaid funds to schools
- Investing in the mental health needs of college students
Adolescent mental health complex clinically and legally
At last week’s hearings, the Wisconsin Hospital Association’s General Counsel Matthew Stanford and Rogers Behavioral Health Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jerry Halverson testified together. They said adolescent mental health is complex both clinically and legally.
They said the result of that complexity often leads to variations in services for young people, barriers to access and undesired outcomes for patients.
Sanford and Halverson said they’re concerned the bills would create more confusion.
Wisconsin lawmakers propose dozens of mental health care bills was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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Other than the issue with the insurance coverage, I do not see how these bills would, “create more confusion”. I would be interested in hearing the reasoning behind that statement. The availability of Mental Health care has been a need for such a long time and will be increasingly so in the near future. We need to invest in our children and our communities.