COVER STORY
UIC USG’s Mental Health Town Hall
This week, I was honored to participate in a town hall on mental health, hosted by the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Undergraduate Student Government as part of their Mental Health Week series.
As I was preparing for the event, I started thinking about how much things have changed over the past six years.
When I first joined the House, in 2019, I was deeply concerned about the pressing need to help people across Illinois get access to affordable, professional mental health care.
Under the previous governor, the State of Illinois went almost two full years without a budget, which had devastating impacts on our mental health service infrastructure. Many providers were forced to shut their doors permanently. Others cut back staffing and hours, so people in crisis were forced to wait months to get the help they desperately needed.
We were already starting to get things back on track when Covid struck, which really focused public attention on mental health as a crucial aspect of healthcare. Now, as I look back, I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished so far:
- We’ve made it easier for out-of-state mental health clinicians to get licensed in Illinois.
- We’ve increased the number of beds in residential mental health treatment centers.
- We created new laws to guarantee insurance coverage for medically necessary mental healthcare services.
- We’ve required insurance reimbursement parity for virtual mental health and substance use disorder services.
More recently, we passed HB 2784, which established a coordinated first responder system that integrates 911 and the new 988 emergency response numbers, specifically for mental health emergencies. The bill aims to reduce the number of arrests for individuals with mental illnesses, by calling in a specialized, mobile response intervention team rather than a police unit.
Here at home, my office has been working hard to help people in DuPage County access services. We collaborated with mental health providers and advocates to hold our own Mental Health Town Hall, to talk about what the state of Illinois is doing to promote mental health, where gaps exist in our mental health safety net, and how we can do more to help people who are living with mental illness.
I also hosted a Mental Health Roundtable with representatives from more than 20 organizations and agencies that serve people throughout DuPage County. By bringing people together, we were able to spark some conversations about how to collaborate in creating new opportunities to improve access to mental health services.
Just last fall, we teamed up with other legislators to host a Mental Health Resource Fair at College of DuPage, to showcase organizations throughout DuPage County that provide mental health resources and support. We also launched the DuPage Council on Strengthening the System for Mental Health and Substance Use Care. In addition, we broke ground this week on the Crisis Recovery Center. (You can read more about this exciting new project below.)
It was great to be a part of this important discussion, and to hear these thoughtful young people talking about the need to improve mental health access for all.