The Wisconsin Context for Supporting Young Adults With Serious Mental Health Conditions
Wisconsin has a long history of focusing on recovery, resilience, peer support, and wraparound values and practices. Two federal grants have supported Wisconsin’s work to develop models to serve youth and young adults with appealing and effective practices.
The first grant supported work by Wraparound Milwaukee from 2009 to 2014. This work provided valuable insights on what approaches are appealing and effective for young people, the barriers they face, and what drives them and helps them to become more successful as they transition into adulthood. Wraparound Milwaukee has more information here.
In 2014, Wisconsin was awarded a grant that supported the development of Youth Empowered Solutions (YES)!. This “Now is the Time” grant provided the resources to build upon what was learned about promoting positive development under the previous federal grant by infusing these practices into Comprehensive Community Services (CCS) programs. The human services departments of Jefferson and Outagamie counties partnered with the Wisconsin Department of Humans Services for this effort.
YES! works. The outcome data supports the positive comments that young adults have been sharing through their participation on CCS Coordination Committees and in statewide presentations at conferences. (WI Department of Health Services, 2020). Details are available in the Resource Center of this website.
Under the “Now is the Time” grant, DHS supported statewide conferences focused on supporting youth transitioning into adulthood, the importance of youth voices, peer support for young people, and neuroplasticity and developmental challenges for this age group.
Explore this website to learn the basics about treating young people with serious health conditions in a CCS program.
For more information about how the Department of Health Services can support this, contact DHSDCTSchildrenSOC@DHS.WISCONSIN.GOV.
Hear their voice. Reluctance to receiving help.
Hear from young people the impact of stigma related to mental health and how to deliver the right support.
Policies to establish the scope of psychosocial service programs, certification standards and criteria for determining the need for rehabilitation services, and other conditions of coverage for community based psychosocial services.
Update of ForwardHealth changes after new budget considerations (as of July 1, 2014). Discusses process for counties and tribes to become Medicaid-enrolled, changes in Medicaid and BadgerCare Plus CCS benefits, and changes to reimbursement process.