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New Children’s Medi-Cal Behavioral Health Benefits 101: Family Therapy and Dyadic Services

California has created a dyadic services Medi-Cal benefit effective January 2023. The dyadic services benefit allows Medi-Cal to cover behavioral health wellness visits that focus on the individual child and their surrounding environment, including caregiver wellness, all within the context of the child’s medical appointment.

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Department of Health Care Services Releases 2021 Preventive Services Report

New data released from the Department of Health Care Services shows how children in Medi-Cal managed care fared in 2020, and just how far we will need to increase preventive service delivery to ensure children receive all the benefits to which they are entitled.

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Many Medi-Cal Changes Underway: An Overview and the Impact on Children

The State of California has embarked on multiple efforts over the last few years to transform the way health care is delivered in the Medi-Cal program. These efforts illustrate Governor Newsom’s larger vision for reform, including those that hold promise to improve outcomes for children.

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Prioritizing Children and Families in California’s New Community Health Worker Benefit

The First 5 Center, First 5 Association, and our partners listed below recently submitted stakeholder comments to inform California’s definition of the new Community Health Workers benefit.

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Dyadic Therapy Changes Lives

Individual therapy approaches cannot capture the complexity involved as parent, baby, their relationship, their family system, and the culture they are in, all interact. Dyadic therapy, where parent and infant/young child are treated together, addresses all levels of these interacting factors.

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California will invest in dyadic care – and show its commitment to family wellness

Among the many important investments in this year’s state budget, California’s new dyadic care benefit in the Medi-Cal program is particularly significant.

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Dyadic Care in Action: Technical Assistance to Expand Parent/Child Social-Emotional Care

Dyadic care models like HealthySteps provide important support to families with young children. Such care is particularly important in this pandemic- recovery time, which exacerbated mental health concerns, family stress, isolation, and income insecurity, particularly for BIPOC families who already face health inequity due to structural racism and oppression.

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California’s Medicaid Breakthrough: An Opportunity to Advance Children’s Social and Emotional Health

Revamping Medicaid policies to improve young children’s social and emotional health and address health care inequities is particularly critical in California, where over half of children ages 0 to 5 have Medicaid coverage (known as Medi-Cal, in California), and two-thirds are children of color.

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California can take steps to address mental health crisis for children, parents and child care providers

The time to prepare is now. California can take several steps to address mental and behavioral health concerns of young children ages 0 to 5, their parents, and child care providers over the next year to reduce adverse childhood experiences and build resilience.

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New pre-pandemic data show children with Medi-Cal don’t access enough preventive care

California’s children covered by Medi-Cal Managed Care received alarmingly low levels of recommended preventive care in 2019, according to data newly released by the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS).

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