Vermont Care Partners urges sustained investment to shore up community mental-health services

Vermont Care Partners told a legislative committee that the state's designated and specialized service agencies (DAs and SSAs) provide the coordinated, community-based safety net Vermonters rely on for mental-health, substance‑use and developmental‑disability services.

Simone Rishmeier, executive director of Vermont Care Partners, said the system is "under extraordinary pressure and strain" because of workforce shortages, rising acuity and housing instability, but stressed that much of the system still works and must be preserved. "Vermont's designated specialized service agencies are backbone of our publicly funded system," she said.

Why it matters: Presenters argued that Vermont's decades‑long policy choice to favor community care over institutional placements makes statewide reforms—payment modernization, crisis continuum expansion and service integration—possible, but only if…