Follow up....CASSW Meeting with CYBH
- president13054
- Jun 19
- 2 min read
Dear CASSW Community,
We are pleased to share encouraging news from our ongoing advocacy work regarding the California Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative (CYBHI).
CASSW met with Autumn Boylan at DHCS this week, and we are proud to report that it went incredibly well. The feedback you shared through our member survey formed the backbone of that conversation, and it made a real difference. Please see the attached one page summary of the feedback we received. Autumn affirmed that our concerns are known at the state level and that DHCS is actively working to address them. Your voices were heard.
We also named something that so many of you live every day: the profound difficulty of fitting school social work into a system that does not yet fully reflect the multi-tiered, whole-school approach that defines best practice in educational settings. The current CYBHI framework lacks full alignment with MTSS, and that gap creates real challenges for school social workers trying to serve students across all tiers of support. We named that tension directly, and it was received with understanding. We also discussed the initiative's complex layers and the need to review and tweak many aspects as everyone learns together.
Moving forward, CASSW is committed to being more present and more persistent at the tables where these decisions are made. We will continue to seek out and claim seats at consultation and decision-making meetings so that the school social work perspective is not an afterthought but a given.
And we want you there with us.
In the coming months, committees focused specifically on CYBHI implementation and advocacy will be forming. If you have a passion for this work, whether you are navigating billing in your district, advocating for your students' access to care, or thinking about policy-level solutions, there will be a place for you at the table. Watch for committee interest announcements and please say yes when the call comes.
Thank you for the trust you placed in us when you completed that survey. This is your association, and this advocacy belongs to all of us.
In community,
Cristina
Comments