4
Policy
Advances
2024
HIGHLIGHTS & ACCOMPLISHMENTS
In Texas, the Meadows Institute equipped lawmakers with the knowledge to expand access to high-quality behavioral health care. We focused on helping local leaders implement the historic investments of the 88th Legislature and strengthened alliances and built momentum for key legislative priorities ahead of the upcoming 89th Legislature. On Capitol Hill, lawmakers are increasingly turning to us for guidance on integrated care, measurement-informed approaches, and other proven strategies.
Texas Investments to Transform Lives and Empower Families
During this interim year between legislative sessions, the Meadows Institute helped communities across Texas access the $300 million in grants approved by the 88th Legislature to promote intensive, evidence-based behavioral health services for high-needs youth, including:
- $21 million to create 15 new Multisystemic Therapy (MST) teams — the only proven treatment for reducing violence and preventing juveniles from continuing to commit offenses — to help the families and communities caring for youth with serious behavioral health concerns or who are at risk of out-of-home placement.
Since the program launched in 2022, 20 MST teams have served:
“We are in a real moment of opportunity, an unprecedented time for mental health. There is so much we can do together.”
— John Snook, chief policy officer
- $14 million to launch the first eight Youth Crisis Outreach Teams (YCOT) to support youth in crisis and their families and reduce hospitalization and involvement with the foster care system by both responding to urgent needs and crises and providing follow-up care for up to three months to ensure that families get the help they need (view map).
- $4.2 million for Coordinated Specialty Care (CSC), the most effective approach for helping people experiencing their first episode of psychosis recover with early, intensive treatment and get back on track with their lives.
Sharing Expertise with Lawmakers
The Meadows Institute was invited to frame the current state of need and identify opportunities to reach more youth for the Texas House and Senate committees charged with recommending policies to support mental health during the 89th Legislature. President and CEO Andy Keller shared our expertise to help inform lawmakers as they seek the most effective and efficient ways to promote behavioral services for at-risk youth and their families and mental health services for Texas’s highest-needs youth.
Charting a Better Path for Texas Children
In partnership with the Statewide Behavioral Health Coordinating Council and our colleagues across Texas, the Meadows Institute contributed substantively to the five-year Children’s Behavioral Health Strategic Plan mandated by the 88th Legislature. The comprehensive plan outlines a vision and 31 actionable recommendations to expand behavioral health services for children in Texas.
Building a National Movement
Positioning for Progress with the New Administration Thanks to a strong push this year to expand our presence on Capitol Hill — and a significant investment from West Health — the Meadows Institute entered 2025 ready to engage with new leadership in Washington. We laid the groundwork to drive evidence-based mental health policies and programs that will help every American thrive in the year ahead.- Inspiring Lawmakers to Drive Change The Meadows Institute engaged Members of Congress and an array of national partners, including the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), and the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, on the gold standard of integrated behavioral health care, the Collaborative Care Model (CoCM). We led a coalition of more than 60 organizations in support of the COMPLETE Care Act, a pivotal step toward fully integrating mental health care into the broader health care system.
- ‘Go and Tell Your Story’ At the American Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s annual legislative conference in Washington, D.C., Senior Vice President of Primary Care Innovation Clare McNutt and Senior Vice President of Federal Affairs Rebecca Murow Klein helped prepare hundreds of child psychiatrists to educate members of Congress on the benefits of pediatric integrated behavioral health and its positive impact on key policy areas, including workforce capacity and health care costs.
- Power in Partnership The Meadows Institute accelerated strategic partnerships to amplify our impact. Path Forward, the coalition we helped launch in 2019, welcomed two premier mental health organizations: NAMI, the nation’s most effective and respected grassroots mental health organization, and the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, which represents more than 3,400 mental health and substance use treatment organizations.
- Guiding the Nation Toward Collaborative Care The Meadows Institute, in collaboration with the National Council for Mental Wellbeing and the American Psychiatric Association, secured a five-year, $13.5 million federal grant to become the nation’s leading technical assistance experts for integrating mental health into primary care. Our program team is helping guide health systems throughout the country to adopt innovative integrated care models that will make collaborative care a reality in their communities.
- Urging Congress to Innovate The Meadows Institute educated lawmakers and urged Congress to pass the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Reauthorization Act and the Behavioral Health Information Technology (BHIT) Coordination Act, legislation that supports the inclusion of mental health data in electronic health records (EHRs) and would help more people receive effective, coordinated care. EHRs revolutionized health care, but the landmark Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009 did not mandate their use in behavioral health care.
“Go and tell your story. Your bravery in speaking out – that’s what moves lawmakers to act.”
— Clare McNutt to a young person with lived experience who attended the conference
Policy Update
The Future of Measurement
The Meadows Institute took to Capitol Hill to brief congressional health care staffers, business leaders, and mental health advocates on the importance of measurement-informed care for serious mental illness. Our experts emphasized that health care professionals can’t manage what they don’t measure so providers must carefully monitor and adjust treatment plans over time — an essential step in helping people recovery.