Becerra in Oregon, says feds will help with mental health on this condition |
Xavier Becerra says the federal government will be there to support mental health services — starting with the new national 988 hotline for suicide prevention — if states also step up.
Becerra, the U.S. secretary of health and human services, made his comment Thursday after he and Gov. Kate Brown spoke with six young workers for YouthLine, a peer-to-peer service that is part of the Lines for Life nonprofit based in Portland.
On his brief stop in Oregon, Becerra also took part in a roundtable discussion with three of Oregon’s U.S. representatives, state legislators and mental health advocates, and met privately with Planned Parenthood advocates. He also visited the Sylvania campus of Portland Community College, where he met future health care workers and took part in another roundtable.
The HHS budget for 2023 now before Congress proposes $700 million for implementation of the 988 hotline, which is scheduled to start July 16 — the amount is up from the $109 million in the current budget — and a total of $7.5 billion for competitive grants to states to transform their mental health services.
The larger amount is part of a 10-year, $51.7 billion commitment that President Joe Biden laid out for mental health in his first State of the Union address on March 1.
“We want to invest with those states that want to do the work. Gov. Brown has made it very clear that Oregon is going to step up and do that,” Becerra told reporters after he and Brown met with the YouthLine workers.
“We want to make sure that if someone does try to call, they actually get a person — not a busy signal or be put on hold. When we launch 988 on July 16, It’s going to be important that we have a whole bunch of folks who are ready to go. We need every state to step up.”
Asked what he learned from the young workers, Becerra said:
“Probably that we’ve got peers who are doing a great job helping these youths, who are probably the shyest and least likely to come forward quickly. That has got to give you some sense of promise that this will be done well, so long as we invest and provide them with the resources they need.”
Brown said it was not her first visit to Lines for Life, which specializes in crisis intervention and treatment for addiction.
“But to hear from the young people doing the work is extraordinary,” she said. “It makes me hopeful for the future and committed to fight for President Biden’s $50 billion investment in behavioral health services across this country.”
Brown signed a $470 million commitment by the 2021 Legislature with a mix of state and federal dollars to boost capacity for mental health, reorganize services, and expand and diversify the workforce.
According to a 2020 national survey, the share of adults who reported a mental health issue rose from 18.3% in 2016 — the rate had been stable for years — to 21% in 2020. The increase was attributed to a surge by young adults ages 18 to 25.
In a 2019 survey of high school students preceding the coronavirus pandemic, one of every…
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