MassHealth Fact Sheet – FY10 H.1 
Children’s Behavioral Health Initiative (CBHI)



Overview

Beginning on June 30, 2009, several new services will be implemented as part of the Children’s 
Behavioral Health Initiative (CBHI). This initiative provides a system for youth and their families 
that incorporates a broad array of coordinated services and supports; integrates care planning 
and management across multiple levels; is culturally and linguistically competent; and builds 
meaningful partnerships with youth and their families at service delivery, management, and policy 
levels. 

CBHI services promote behavioral health of youth and families, provide a comprehensive array of 
accessible formal and informal services and individualized service planning and delivery in ways 
that actively engage youth and families in the context of their unique cultures, works to ensure the 
least restrictive and least intrusive community-based services that can meet identified needs, and 
integrates and coordinate service delivery across all service systems. 

In the context of the state’s continued budgetary shortfalls, MassHealth and EOHHS have asked 
the Attorney General’s Office to file a motion with the Court to modify the implementation 
schedule. The proposed plan would retain the June 30, 2009 deadline for Intensive Care 
Coordination, Mobile Crisis Intervention, and Caregiver Peer to Peer Support,  but change to July 
1, 2010 the deadline for Crisis Stabilization, In-Home Behavioral Services, In-Home Therapy 
Services and Therapeutic Mentoring.


FY10 Initiatives

$43.5M Investment for Children’s Behavioral Health Initiative

The Commonwealth is seeking modification in the CBHI as a responsible response to budget 
challenges and is designed to prevent deep cuts in existing services instead of building all of the 
new services on the original CBHI timeline. 

This investment will help preserve existing services.  For members of the Rosie D. class, the 
services MassHealth is rolling out first (Intensive Care Coordination), Mobile Crisis, and Parent 
Partners) are the most critical and will substantially meet the needs the Court identified.