Children's Mental Health Resources

Children's mental health collaboratives were established by the 1993 Minnesota Legislature in recognition that children with severe emotional disturbances or who are at risk of such disturbances often require services from multiple service systems. No single agency can assume the responsibility for the provision of services and in order for the services provided to be effective, non-duplicative and non-fragmented, a network of child-serving agencies in which the family was a full partner was needed.

The Children's Mental Health Integrated Fund legislation created children's mental health collaboratives as entities in which counties, school districts, local mental health entities and juvenile corrections are mandatory partners that come to an agreement with parents, public health and other community-based organizations to provide integrated and coordinated services, pool resources and design services.

Through collaboratives, children with emotional disturbances and their families received a coordinated, multi-agency response to their needs, and participate fully in the design and implementation of a common plan of care through an innovative process known as "wraparound."

Children's mental health collaboratives have provided innovative services to over 25,000 children in the six years they have been in existence.

Since the new legislation was passed, 42 children's mental health collaboratives have been approved by the Children's Cabinet representing 51 counties in Minnesota. All but 9 are integrated with a Family Services Collaborative. An estimated 70% of Minnesota's children with severe emotional disturbances and their families live in the geographic area covered by children's mental health collaboratives.

Collaborative partners must decide how to restructure their resources, decision making, liability and other issues to support children and families. A model Governance Agreement is available to guide the efforts to create a formal collaborative structure.

Click here for Governance Click here for Collaborative Contacts Click here for the report to the 2003 Legislature: The Role of Collaboratives in the Children's Mental Health System

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