United Parents is a Ventura County-based nonprofit organization of families and professionals that are devoted to children and adolescents with emotional, mental and behavioral disorders.

Due to severe budgetary issues facing the county agencies from state cuts, vital services to the students in our county will be affected.

Our children have educational needs that cannot be met by a regular education classroom without additional services. Each child has an Individual Education Plan (IEP) to outline the services needed for education. Students with emotional disturbances may have more needs than can be met by the schools alone.

These students receive services from Ventura County Behavioral Health (VCBH) as part of their educational plan. These students have diagnoses that range from attention deficit disorder to schizophrenia. The services are mandated by state law under Ch. 26.5 of the CCR.

State education laws state the school IEP team determines when mental health services are needed. The IEP team is made up of parents, administrators, support providers and, in this case, a representative of VCBH.

VCBH currently provides these services to children and this may disappear. Although this program is mandated by state law, however, VCBH (and the other counties in California) have not been reimbursed by the state for the last few years for these services.

This year the schools (from Special Education money) gave VCBH $2.6 million, but that is still short of what is needed to preserve these programs.

Without these valuable services, the long-term cost to the county and the taxpayers (police calls, increased juvenile arrests, hospitalizations, increased out-of-home placements) will significantly increase over the lifetime of the student as he or she reaches adulthood and beyond.

This not only affects the families of these children and our community, but you and your families.

Please call or write your representative on the County Board of Supervisors. Let them know the impacts and shortsightedness of such cuts. We have seen too many successes of students becoming productive citizens in Ventura County because of Chapter 26.5. The alternative is too costly to our community and especially to our children.

Laura Valdez

President

United Parents