The Mills administration has allocated funds to extend pediatric behavioral health programs run by MaineHealth for an additional year that the state says comes amid high suicide rates and mental health issues among Maine’s youth stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to a contract document published Tuesday, the Children’s Behavioral Health Services (CBHS), a division of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (Maine DHHS), will be awarding nearly $400,000 through a non-competitive grant to Maine Medical Center in Westbrook to keep the pediatric behavioral health programs running for another year.
Funding for the grant comes from the federal Pediatric Mental Health Access Program, administered by the Health Resources and Services Administration, a sub-agency of the U.S. DHHS.
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Maine DHHS staff wrote in the contract document that the grant will “increase access to behavioral health care by expanding the ability of pediatric primary and specialty care providers to detect, assess, treat and refer children with behavioral health disorders.”
“This amendment adds funding to continue services for another year, allowing the current vendor [MaineHealth] to continue providing peer-to-peer telehealth consultations, be subject matter experts at the ECHO Webinar Series and to provide additional education to clinical providers through technical assistance and Lunch & Learns sessions without disruption while the Department transitions management of the grant and evaluates any necessary program changes prior to competitive procurement,” staff wrote.
Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) is a telementoring organization hosted at the University of New Mexico that runs a wide array of health care-related webinar series, meant to disseminate best practices to providers globally.
Cited by staff in the contract document is data from America’s Health Rankings from 2022 that ranked Maine among states with the highest suicide rates for youth ages 15-19 at 16.8 per 100,000.
Also cited was the 2021 Maine Integrated Youth Health Survey, which found that 31.6 percent of middle schoolers and 42.7 percent of high schoolers in Maine reported their mental health as “not good,” which Maine DHHS staff wrote exemplifies “the profound impact the COVID-19 pandemic has hand on Maine’s youth.”
Maine DHHS as initiated a Request for Proposals (RFP) process for a future competitive procurement of the pediatric mental and behavioral health services for a contract start date in July 2025.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="32637 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=32637">16 Comments
But the scumbag democrats in the Maine legislature want to cover up the CONvid “vaccine” death toll or any investigation into mortality rates associated with the fake “vaccines.” And they want to continue to jab jab jab our children with this poison!
Once it s learned that policy caused more suicide than disease, they’ll bury the results of their expensive study
”…the profound impact the [fake] COVID-19 pandemic has hand on Maine’s youth.” The study may conclude that lockdowns, masks, Zoom classes, separation from their friends and so on caused the mental health crisis but it will NEVER put direct blame on the useless government hacks who enforced those draconian edicts. Mills, Shah, Lambrew, etc. should all be in prison.
Look through the smoke, they’re going to milk this cow till there’s no money left. Next they’ll wait till some state with actual smart people in charge file a lawsuit just like they did for opioids then latch on for class action. Augusta is the retarded kid CA and NY pull behind in a wagon.
I think the actual.link will be the government overreach that is causing the spike. Is Florida seeing a spike?
goverment overeach is cause, not the disease
Gov causes a problem, gov spends money to study problem, gov spends money on “solution”. Problem gets worse, gov spends money to study problem…..
Meanwhile gov donors make money, gov makes money, taxpayers get poorer.
Well what do they expect when they tell teenagers and young people that they can’t spend time together, they can’t play sports, they have to stand 6 feet apart from each other. And it was all a pack of lies. I have too many friends who have young people who have struggled because of this. The Study should be on Fauci and Janet Mills and why they’re so sick. They should pay for the study themselves.
In as few words as possible, NO SHIT!!
“ Maine is the retarded kid being pulled behind the wagon “
Too FUNNY …..LMAO ….I love it !
Spot On !
FU Czarina Mills.
They have been telling kids for years that they are going to die any day from covid, N1H1, sars, swine flu, bird flu, e-bola, the world is going to end because of the new ice age, global warming and seeing as we can’t make up our mind climate change, over population, and or starvation. Plus, we don’t allow children to be children without using them as pawns in our agenda. Then we wonder why they have depression. Lets fund a study, I wonder which legislator’s half-sister, brother-in-law, or child will win the “grant”
As does serving in combat…
No wonder kids are suicidal, they are told the world is over in 7 years from climate change, they are told they can change their sex, sit in your room and play video games 24/7. They don’t encourage work to give them self worth and they teach them that Americans are evil.
Throw in the transgender craze that quickly followed covid with the lgbtq pushing its agenda on these kids and it’s no wonder so many struggled.
School is a different experience today then when we all went to school. It’s more like the Rocky Mountain Horror Show.
Sad part is this study is looking for a reason but the reason that we will hear is the one that lays no blame on the leaders at the time.
By the way,,did anyone feed the kid that thinks that he/she/whatever is a cat.
“Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) is a telementoring organization hosted at the University of New Mexico” Is there a difference between telementoring and telemarketing?
We don’t need a study to find the link between covid and higher suicide rates amoung our youth. We already know the answer. Governor Mills, Lambrew and Shah is the answer. It’s their response to covid and their requirements of mandates and lockdowns that caused the increase!