The leader of the Mental Health Association of New York State says the recently adopted state budget provides a 'mixed bag' of funding for programs. But as WBFO's senior reporter Eileen Buckley tells us it does provide state dollars to help schools launch mental health curriculums.
"We want the next generation to be mental health literate. We think that is incredibly important,” stated Glenn Liebman, CEO of the Mental Health Association of New York State.
New York is the first state in the nation to pass a law that now mandates teaching about mental health in schools.
Liebman appeared in Buffalo to review the newly adopted budget and potential funding gaps. But Glenn Liebman tells WBFO News while they did not get the amounts requested for housing and workforce, he is very pleased lawmakers approved funding to create a resource center for training and implementation to help schools develop mental health curriculums.
“And we were very excited about it. The concerns we brought up was that right now there’s no real funding behind it – it’s a great law and it’s laudable and we’re excited to see how it plays out in schools, but there is a lot of misinformation out mental health. There’s no mandated curriculum about mental health, so we wanted to go in and have ability to talk with schools about how to go ahead and start implementing about mental health teaching in schools,” Liebman explained.
One in five youth in the United States is directly impacted by mental health issues. Schools are slated to roll out mental health curriculums in the classrooms this fall.
