Announcing Mental Health Initiatives

As part of their Advancing Minnesota agenda, Senate Republicans and advocates from the medical field, law enforcement, and county governments spoke at a Capitol press conference Wednesday, April 11, in support of efforts to increase mental health treatment and services throughout the state.

Senator David Senjem, R-Rochester, promoted two capital improvements bills held over from last session that would address the continuum of care. One measure would use $50 million dollars to build up to three behavior health centers for long-term treatment. The other measure seeks $30 million dollars to build six crisis centers throughout the state to handle cases of acute mental illness. "There’s nowhere to go" when a mental health crisis strikes, said Senator Senjem. "Mental illness is a huge issue in our society today. We're going to try to do something with is this session."

Other proposals included in the mental health initiative seek grants to use telemedicine to extend access to mental health services in schools, dollars directed toward counseling for farm families and rural business operators and a variety of safe schools funding streams that can be used to increase access to support services like counselors, social workers and psychologists.