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STATE CHILDREN'S HEALTH INSURANCE PROGRAM (SCHIP)

What it is:  The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), enacted by Congress in 1997 to increase health insurance coverage for low-income children, can increase access of children and youth to critical mental health interventions, thereby helping to reduce later crime and violence.

How does SCHIP help prevent crime?  The State Children's Health Insurance Program can provide funding for many effective interventions that are proven to help treat kids with behavioral or emotional problems, prevent later violence and save taxpayers money.

• Studies show that behavior problems in young children, such as impulsivity, hyperactivity, and aggression, are linked to later antisocial behavior. For example, an estimated 7% or more of preschoolers have levels of disruptive, aggressive behaviors severe enough to qualify for a mental health diagnosis and approximately 60% of these children will later manifest high levels of antisocial and delinquent behavior. SCHIP coverage can help ensure that behavioral and emotional problems and mental illnesses are identified and treated while children are young, preventing more serious problems later that increase a child's risk of involvement in the juvenile justice system.
• SCHIP can help fund evidenced-based, intensive individual and family therapy programs for troubled youth, such as Functional Family Therapy, Multi-Systemic Therapy and Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care. These interventions work individually with kids to change their behavior, with parents to equip them to better manage their children's behavior and with communities to move kids back into classrooms.
  • For example, youth who received Functional Family Therapy (FFT) were half as likely to be re-arrested as the youths whose families did not receive the family therapy. By reducing recidivism among juvenile offenders, Functional Family Therapy saves the public roughly $32,000 per youth treated.
  • If kids are more serious juvenile offenders, Multi-Systemic Therapy (MST) is a more intensive intervention strategy to change criminal behavior and prevent all-too-common repeat offenses. MST targets kids who are serious juvenile offenders by addressing the multiple factors - in peer, school, neighborhood and family environments - known to be related to delinquency. One MST study followed juvenile offenders until they were, on average, 29-years-old. Individuals who had not received MST were 62 percent more likely to have been arrested for an offense , and more than twice as likely to be arrested for a violent offense. It is also less expensive than other mental health and juvenile justice services like residential treatment and incarceration, saving the public $4.27 for every dollar invested.
  • Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) provides services for young offenders and their families when serious delinquent behavior occurs and a youth must be placed outside the home. Research shows that the MTFC approach successfully cuts the average number of arrests for seriously delinquent juveniles in half. MTFC is also cost effective. MTFC saves the public over $77,000 per juvenile treated.

Overwhelming unmet need: The State Children's Health Insurance Program provides health coverage to over six million low-income children with incomes just above the eligibility threshold for Medicaid enrollment. But federal funding for SCHIP is limited and 9 million children are without health coverage. Moreover, without increased federal funding for this program, many currently enrolled kids may lose their coverage due to funding shortfalls.

Recommendation:  Fight Crime: Invest in Kids urges Congress to reauthorize the State Children's Health Insurance Program and ensure adequate federal funding for states to both maintain their existing SCHIP caseloads and for states to cover all children and pregnant woman up to 200% of the federal poverty line. Also, since a number of states limit the amount or duration of mental health services coverage, Congress should help states to expand coverage for mental health services so that it is sufficient to help troubled kids get back on track.

For more information, please contact Miriam Rollin at (202) 776-0027 ext. 143 or miriam@fightcrime.org