Resources

Under a Healthy Students, Promising Futures technical assistance contract, Rebecca Gudeman from the National Center for Youth Law developed this tool to support efforts to share school health information and data for the HSPF state team in Colorado.

Also see:
Appendix B: Colorado Minor Consent and Confidentiality Laws
Appendix C: A Quick Reference Chart to Confidentiality Laws

This comprehensive guide provides background on school-based Medicaid and outlines various opportunities to advance state policy changes required to access federal funds. It is designed for anyone working to expand access to school health services, including state and local education agency staff, state Medicaid agencies, school health providers, public health professionals and children’s health advocates.

Key opportunities exist for education, healthcare and public health sectors to improve both health and education outcomes by focusing on school-based health services. This national policy brief primarily addresses the opportunities to expand on health services delivered within a school by school nurses and other district-employed providers (school psychologists, social workers, counselors, occupational therapists, physical therapists and speech-language pathologists), using the "free care" policy clarification issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

This Healthy Students Promising Futures Learning Collaborative case study highlights Michigan's work to leverage the reversal of free care policy to expand the state's school-based Medicaid program.

As of October 2019, school districts in Michigan are able to seek Medicaid reimbursement for services provided to all Medicaid-enrolled students (not only for health services included in a student's Individualized Education Program). This change presents an important opportunity to expand access to and resources for school health services, particularly behavioral health services.

This toolkit by Community Catalyst provides information and resources to mobilize communities to expand school-based services for substance use prevention and early intervention.

This activity brief, maintained by Healthy Schools Campaign and Community Catalyst, outlines state actions to implement the reversal of the free care policy. Some of the information in this brief is based on informal conversations with policymakers and advocates. This document is updated as changes are known to the HSPF team.

This guidance, issued by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), includes examples of approaches for mental health and substance use disorders related treatment services in schools. It also describes some of the Medicaid state plan benefits and other Medicaid authorities that states may use to cover mental health and SUD-related treatment services.

This case study highlights Massachusetts’ implementation of Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT), an evidence-based screening and early intervention for alcohol and substance use that is used in schools, primary care and other settings to identify risky behaviors among adolescents to prevent alcohol and substance misuse.

Sandra Williamson, American Institutes for Research; Anne Mathews-Younes, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; Valerie Sims Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of Adolescent and School Health; Sarah Lee, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Healthy Schools Branch

Amanda Martin, Center for Rural Health Innovation

Rebecca Gudeman, National Center for Youth Law