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Kaine tours Highlands Community Services Children's Campus to research crisis intervention, mental health services in SW Va.

Bristol Herald Courier - 7/22/2017

ABINGDON, Va. - U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine stressed the importance of seeking advice from local health care experts to take back to Washington during a visit Friday to the Highlands Community Services Children's Campus.

Kaine toured the campus in Abingdon to learn about the mental health services and crisis intervention the facility provides to children in Washington County and Bristol, Virginia.

"Today is a little bit of a health care day for me, we're [United States Senate] in the midst of this significant health care debate in Washington right now where there will be a pivotal vote on Tuesday," Kaine said. "Coincidentally, I had long planned to come to work at the RAM Clinic in Wise earlier today, but I have been hearing about this program [Children's Campus] that serves children in a very innovative way. ? I wanted to see it as this is a different model from what many communities use and it's relevant to the discussion about health care we're having because so much of these services are paid for by Medicaid."

The senator met with HCS Executive Director Jeff Fox and senior management.

"I wanted to come here to hear what they're [HCS] doing and that will help me help my colleagues make a better case for programs like this, but also hopefully convince them that big cuts to Medicaid are not the smart thing to do."

Since January, Kaine has served on the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, whose chairman is Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee.

"If we would just get the committee to hear from witness like these folks - experts - have a dialogue, ask questions, offer amendments, debate amendments - vote some up, vote some down - we could go through a process that would improve the situation [as] we are faced with a vote that will worsen the situation if it were to pass."

The Children's Campus opened March 16. For the past decade, HCS has provided various services to children but never in an isolated space.

"The Children's Campus is a state-of-the-art facility," Fox said. "It's proven to be a really valuable resource to the community that will serve this area and community for years to come."

Throughout the past 10 years, HCS has gone from serving 450 to more than 1,800 children in the area, Fox said. One in nine children in the area uses the services.

Additionally, the number of employees has risen to 372 from 125 over the 10-year span.

The programs offered in the facility include the Safety Zone, Interchange: Therapeutic Alternative Schools, prevention and education, Intensive Family Services, EMBRACE Sponsor Homes, School-Based Day Treatment program and a summer camp.

The Safety Zone opened in February. Since October 2013, HCS has served more than 500 kids in the program alone in its various facilities. The Zone is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Children can stay in the facility for approximately 15 days.

"The Safety Zone is for those children who are in some sort of an acute crisis - whether it's difficulties at home, effects of bullying, domestic violence - and instead of going to a residential facility they can come here," Fox said.

The School-Based Day Treatment program is in 18 schools in the area and focuses on behavior issues and helping children stay in school.

If that doesn't work, they have the option of going to Interchange, Fox said. It is broken into two programs, one for elementary and middle school students and one for older children up to the age of 18.

If the child cannot be sustained they have the option of coming to Interchange."

The main goal is for the child, who can stay up to a year, to go back to their own school.

When the Children's Campus opened, there were 16 students enrolled in Interchange, with the number rising to 27 by the end of May. HCS expects to reach 40 students by the time the next school year begins.

The summer camp program serves approximately 115 children a day.

"Just because the schools stop doesn't mean the students can stop services," Fox said. "There are children who need the extra support and structure and we provide it in the summer in a fun environment that doesn't make a break in the care."

A repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) threatens critical federal funding for those battling opioid addiction by ending the Mediciaid expansion and subsidies for the ACA marketplace, according to a HCS news release. Additionally, a repeal of the act would mean more than 2.2 million people with substance disorders and 1.2 million people with serious mental illness would lose some of or all of their coverage.

"The Medicaid program is kind of the key pillar to the vote we are having next week. More than 50 percent of recipients of Medicaid in Virginia are kids and then Medicaid provides services in so many different ways that I felt like 'Okay here is an innovative program that really relies on Medicaid, doing the right thing, we need to have more programs like this, not fewer,'" Kaine said.