A school-based mental health program will be expanded after legislation was passed in Washington DC to help Illinois schools afford critical mental health services.

It is a piece of legislation Piatt County Mental Health Center Executive Director Tony Kirkman is very excited about. He feels this will allow schools to bring help to students in a growing area of need.

But for Kirkman, there is a drawback to this program. He explains the bill, as currently constructed, only allows students on Medicaid to access this. He does not feel that is right.

While this is going to be a great program, Kirkman would like to see a little more local control and more local coordination in implementing this program.

Kirkman believes the component of giving students on Medicaid exclusive access to the program is a further example of the lack of funding coming to community mental health centers and feels if they could provide their staff a competitive wage, they could provide more transformational programming for their communities.