I am writing in support of the continued funding for the Crisis Stabilization Unit (CSU) at Edgewood Center for Children and Families. Our community has known Edgewood to deliver the utmost quality of care to San Francisco’s most vulnerable children and youth for 168 years. The Edgewood CSU is the only one of its kind for the Bay Area. It is a stand alone, unlocked, pediatric stabilization unit. Without it, children, ages 5-17 years old, will suffer long waits in emergency rooms and psychiatric hospitalizations, which will further destabilize them and impinge upon an already overburdened system. Emergency rooms are no place for children in psychiatric crisis.
San Francisco County is responsible for the provision of specialty mental health services to Medi-Cal beneficiaries. (Welf. & Inst. Code secs. 5775-77; CCR tit. 9 sec. 1810.305). Specialty mental health services include psychiatric inpatient hospital services, rehabilitation mental health services such as crisis intervention, crisis stabilization, and crisis residential treatment services and EPSDT supplemental specialty mental health services, among other things. (CCR tit. 9 sec. 1810.247). Counties are required to “ensure that the type of specialty mental health services are adequate to meet the needs of beneficiaries with medical necessity for specialty mental health services.” (CCR tit. 9 sec. 1810.345).
The defunding of Edgewood’s CSU, the only one in San Francisco City and County, breaches the County’s obligations as set forth in the above statutes and regulations to meet the needs of youth at risk and in crisis.
Please continue to fund the Edgewood Crisis Stabilization Unit.
