I’ve worked for decades in the behavioral health field, both before and during my time serving the people of Waterville in the Legislature. I’ve been a case manager, worked in group homes and worked as a clinician on an Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) team. I’ve worked in partial hospitalization programs and intensive outpatient programs. I’ve also provided therapy in offices, our local schools and in the homes of our community members.

Through these professional experiences, I watched as a lack of funding led to the deterioration of crucial mental health and substance use disorder (SUD) care services, which harmed individuals and families that I worked with. It’s what led me to first run for office eight years ago. While we’ve made important progress as a state to rebuild these essential services, there is still significantly more work to do to invest in Maine’s mental health infrastructure.

Over the last few decades, funding cuts occurred under administrations of both Republican and Democratic governors. But the erosion ramped up in the late 2000s, especially after the 2008 recession. During my time in the Legislature, I have watched bill after bill intending to rebuild our mental health system fail to get funding, which allowed the system to crumble more. I heard repeatedly from both constituents and non-constituents about the inability to get services for their child, who were often sitting in an emergency room for days or weeks. I watched my own clients and even a family member struggle to receive services. This is unacceptable.

Mental health investments should not be a partisan issue. The lack of availability of critical services hurts all Mainers, making it difficult for many to access the care they desperately need. Our young people who are languishing in emergency rooms because we don’t have enough inpatient beds or residential care facilities don’t belong to any political party; they’re kids who are suffering and they’re not old enough to even vote.

Throughout my time in the Legislature, I’ve been determined to fight for improved funding and access to comprehensive behavioral health care, and we’ve been able to accomplish a lot so far. In 2023 alone, we invested tens of millions of dollars to increase rate reimbursements for behavioral health care providers and improve access to SUD treatment, which will help ensure Mainers can receive the services they need.

Outside of increasing funding, I’m also proud of the work we’ve done to implement measures to provide additional tools to help address our mental health crisis. We’ve heard bills this session to improve mobile crisis services and initiate more receiving centers. We already have one receiving center in Portland, with a model that offers people in crisis a more appropriate place to go to get help instead of an emergency room. The Department of Health and Human Services is committed to making this more available in other areas of the state, but it alone won’t solve the problem, as receiving centers and mobile crisis services need places to refer those who need help.

We have an opportunity to do more this year. I’ve seen more bipartisan agreement about the need to fund community-based behavioral health services than I have ever seen in my legislative experience. I sit on the Health and Human Services Committee, and we recently had a bipartisan, unanimous vote to recommend to the Appropriations Committee that they spend $15 million to fund bills that address serious gaps in our community mental health system.

Another bill, L.D. 472 would provide bridge funding for Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics, which are a new federal model that several providers in Maine have been working on to expand access to services. Other bills would increase the availability of children’s mental health services in rural areas, reduce barriers to recovery by making it easier for those with to get case management services, address workforce shortages in the field, develop a program for those who often use crisis services, and more.

The problems in our mental health system harm Democrats, Republicans and those that don’t care about politics. If we really intend to address the mental health crisis, we need to act now. Every day we don’t is a day that someone’s son or daughter sits in the emergency room with nowhere else to go. Or maybe you or someone you know is tired of being on a waitlist for a therapist or psychiatric provider.

You’ve waited long enough. We all have — and we deserve better.

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