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Committee advances pilot for mental‑health crisis teams to serve students whose behavior risks harm
Summary
The committee approved Senate Bill 451 to pilot multi‑agency mental‑health crisis response teams for students exhibiting violence or severe behavioral threats; sponsors said the pilot will be limited to 500 students and carry an estimated state fiscal impact in the millions, split between education and Medicaid funding.
The Arkansas House Education Committee voted to advance Senate Bill 451, a pilot program that would create mental‑health crisis response teams to evaluate and provide short‑term intensive services for students who “demonstrate behavior that is substantially likely to cause injury,” sponsors and agency officials said.
Representative Scott Richardson, who presented the bill to the committee, described it as a targeted, costly but necessary intervention. “This bill provides that the Department of Education, along with the Department of Health, work together, to create mental health crisis response teams,” Richardson said. He told members the pilot would be limited to 500 students and estimated the initial annual cost at about $4 million, and that the program is intended to bring students back into less‑restrictive school settings as quickly as possible.
Department of Education staff…
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