Advocacy

For over 110 years, Hillsides has provided children, youth, and families with vital services to help them heal and create a hopeful pathway forward.  In step with its mission, Hillsides supports policies that strengthen behavioral health delivery, improve the child welfare system, and meet the needs of all communities.

Hillsides focuses on four main objectives through advocacy and public policy engagement.

Expand Behavioral Health Access for Children, Youth, and Families

  • Ensure children and youth have access to critical and trauma-informed services in diverse settings that are appropriate to their needs, enabling them to heal.
  • Preserve access to specialized and intensive care, treatment, and support services.
  • Advocate for Medical Necessity Parity in the commercial insurance review process to support timely access to care and continuous coverage for appropriate levels of care.
  • Advocate for parity in commercial insurance and Medicaid accessibility to high-quality behavioral health services for children, youth, and families.

Reinforce Advocacy Efforts for the Foster Care, Adoptions, and Permanency Programs

  • Advocate for policies that will sustain our Foster Family Agency’s crucial services, which ensure children and youth in foster care are placed with a safe and loving resource family.
  • Support foster adoption regulations that will facilitate the prompt adoption of a child by a safe and nurturing family.
  • Support policies and opportunities that will address the ongoing workforce challenges faced by Foster Family Agencies.
  • Advocate for reasonable insurance liability rates for Foster Family Agencies.

Ensure Young Adults Youth have the Necessary Support for Lasting Independence

  • Advocate for young adults to have access to housing, and other critical services so that they can continue education, establish career paths, secure employment opportunities, and achieve financial literacy, which is pivotal in achieving stability and success.
  • Support policies that will increase accessibility to trauma-informed behavioral health services for unhoused youth.
  • Advocate for unhoused youth prevention services, such as family intervention programs and life skills training to support youth in achieving stability.

Ensure Children, Youth, and Families Have Access to Critical Prevention and Early Intervention Services

  • Advocate to increase access for children, youth, and families to an array of programs and services designed to prevent child welfare system involvement and foster care entry.
  • Support the investment of resources and toolkits for families to identify early signs of behavioral health issues, and ensure they seek early intervention during a child’s most formative years.
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