What We Do

Public Policy

The National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health is a family-run organization that arose 20 years ago from a grassroots movement. Our membership includes more than 120 chapters and state organizations representing the families of children and youth with mental health needs. We believe that families should have a primary decision-making role in the care of their own children as well as in the development of policies and procedures governing care for all children in their community, state, tribe, territory, and nation.

As highlighted by Goal 2 of the final report of the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, “Mental Health Care Is Consumer and Family Driven,” family-driven care is essential to improving outcomes for children, and we strive to create a system that:

• Enables parents to select culturally and linguistically competent supports, services, and providers;
• Promotes clear goals with specific outcomes that are monitored;
• Designs, implements, and evaluates effective programs; and
• Makes parents partners in care and funding decisions.

We believe

• Children with mental health needs:
  • Have strengths and make valuable contributions to their families.
  • Are children first and deserve the same love, care, and attention as all other children.
  • Have a right to safely participate in community life, live with their families, and attend school.
  • Come from all backgrounds and must be treated with dignity and respect.
  • Must receive all the services and supports necessary to achieve their potential.
  • Mental health is essential to overall health.
  • Consumer involvement in the form of family-to-family and youth-to-youth support programs provides critical assistance to those in need while also reducing costs.
  • Family- and youth-run organizations must be funded and sustained.
  • Services and supports should be culturally and linguistically competent so that the needs of the diverse populations are appropriately addressed.
  • Educating parents will improve outcomes for children, especially in the form of parent-to-parent and peer-to-peer services in the community.
  • Providers should take into consideration practice-based and community-defined evidence, respecting cultural preferences and traditions in creating care models.

We Support

• Clinical, therapeutic outcomes and functional outcomes such as:
  • Children remain at home with their families;
  • Children stay in school in the least restrictive environment possible; and
  • Children stay out of the criminal justice system.
• The health care system should equip children with the tools they need to transition to adulthood, not just to adult mental health systems.
• The health care system should involve collaboration and care coordination that will form the basis for a shared responsibility model for services and outcomes, and will link medical care with behavioral care.
• School- and community-based resources are key to providing children with accessible care and early intervention to address symptoms before they develop into diagnoses.
• Public programs such as Medicaid and SCHIP must be preserved and strengthened to ensure critical access to health care and related services for individuals with chronic illnesses, including individuals with mental illnesses.
• Health care reform must ensure that individuals with mental and substance use disorders have access to the full array of services necessary for recovery from these conditions and are not subject to arbitrary limits on days, visits, and other conditions of coverage.
• Health care reform must ensure that services for mental health and substance use are offered at parity with coverage of other chronic health conditions.
• A quality coordinated health care system should use state-of-the-art health information technology, using privacy-protected, family-accessible, consumer-centered electronic medical records.
• For youth in contact with the juvenile justice system, there should be a greater availability of mental health and substance use services.