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Dear Behavioral Health Colleagues,
As students across California head back to school, this season feels personal. I’m not only the CEO of the California Behavioral Health Association, I’m also the mother of two school-aged boys. Like so many parents, I send them into a new school year with excitement, pride, hope and worry.
Our children are growing up in a complicated world. They are navigating social media, artificial intelligence, academic pressures, bullying, questions of identity, and an emotional wellbeing landscape forever changed by the Pandemic. For families raising children of different abilities, races, cultures, sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, there can also be a constant concern about whether our children will be understood, protected and valued.
As a Black mother raising two Black boys in America, that awareness keeps me vigilant to my core. Every child deserves to enter a classroom knowing that who they are is something to be celebrated, not something they must overcome.
At CBHA, we believe behavioral health must be central to how California supports the next generation. That belief has driven our advocacy for stronger teacher behavioral health training, 9-8-8 crisis infrastructure and awareness, mobile crisis response, and policies that help young people access support when and where they need it.
It also drives our longstanding commitment to equity and inclusion. Our support for BIPOC behavioral health leaders and advocacy for LGBTQIA+ youth evidences that CBHA continues to champion a behavioral health system rooted in dignity, culture, identity and community.
And we’re looking ahead…
Through CBHA’s Behavioral Health Innovation Institute (BHII) and our new Tech to Empower Campaign, we are helping California’s behavioral health field prepare for emerging technology, treatments and models of care while helping young people see technology as more than entertainment or connection, but as a tool that can support their wellbeing.
Behind every conversation about youth behavioral health are real children and families, including my own. That is why CBHA will continue bringing providers, policymakers, communities and innovators together, not simply to respond to change, but to help shape what comes next.
To California’s young people, parents, educators, providers and communities: welcome back to school.
Here’s to a year where every child feels safe, supported, seen and empowered to thrive.
In Service,
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