Goals and Objectives for 2024-2027

Goals and Objectives for 2024-2027

The Commission will pursue its North Star priority by working with community members, experts, governmental, and civic partners to achieve the following goals.

Goal 1: Champion Vision to Action

The Commission will analyze data and engage all partners to advance the evolution of policies necessary to provide an early, effective and universally available system of behavioral health supports and services.

Objective 1: Elevate the perspective of diverse communities.

The Commission will partner with local agencies and community organizations to engage all people with lived experience, their families and neighbors to understand the impacts of the current systems; identify opportunities for improving services and reducing disparities; and, elevate concerns and suggestions to public and private system leaders.

Objective 2: Assess and advocate for system improvements.

The Commission will assess and publish key opportunities for investments and changes in policies and practices that will move California toward a universally accessible, integrated and effective system of care that prevents and reduces the incidence and consequence of mental health issues at the earliest possible moment.

Objective 3: Connect federally and globally to learn and apply.

The Commission will Identify and engage in federal and international initiatives seeking to promote the north star goal, assess how California could contribute or benefit from those initiatives, and convene and share that information with system and community partners in California.

Goal 2: Catalyze Best Practice Networks to ensure access, improve outcomes and reduce disparities.

The Commission will engage public and private partners, including universities and institutes, to catalyze the creation of best practice networks of excellence. These dynamic networks will strive to accelerate the effective implementation of service models that work together to provide universal access to a system of high-quality supports and services. The networks will curate best practices, provide technical assistance, assess and address barriers to implementation, and identify policies and practices for continuous improvement.

The Commission will focus first on networks supporting its seminal efforts in school-based mental health, early psychosis intervention, allcove® youth drop-in centers, workplace mental health strategies, and full service partnerships. Specifically, the Commission will advance these elements that are essential to system change:

Objective 1: Support organizational capacity building.

The networks should support the development of organizational partnerships, the collaborative use of data to assess services, the ability to design and implement change projects and manage toward continuous improvement.

Objective 2: Fortify professional development programs and resilient workforce strategies.

The networks should help to align and augment professional development programs to build the needed skills and abilities, develop educational pipelines for future staff that begin in the communities that are being served, and build career ladders that provide for individual growth and robust service systems. 

Objective 3: Develop adequate and reliable funding models.

The networks should develop and implement models for integrating funding that provides universal access, high quality services and sustainable operations. The network should explore models that make use of existing resources under existing policies, as well as identifying changes in policies and practices that would result in integrated, adequate, and reliable funds.

Objective 4: Support system-level analysis to ensure the tailored care and universal access required to reduce disparities.

The networks should ensure efficient and informative research and evaluations inform public storytelling and understanding, improve practices and outcomes, and drive changes in state and federal policies, regulations, and program administration.

Goal 3: Inspire Innovation and Learning

The Commission will develop strategies and partnerships to catalyze innovation and accelerate the development and dissemination of new models and practices that further improve behavioral health and wellbeing.

Objective 1: Curate an analytical-based narrative on the potential for innovation to improve behavioral health outcomes.

The narrative will be supported and promoted through convenings and communications that bring together community voices, researchers, practitioners, and system leaders to explore opportunities, learnings, and future applications. These collaborative efforts will analyze opportunities, experimental projects, results and impacts on individual lives, families, and neighborhoods.

Objective 2: Establish an innovation fund to link and leverage public and private investments.

The fund will seek investors and partners who can help resource and shape projects to identify high-value learning opportunities with the potential to reduce disparities, improve the quality of life and public outcomes, and drive transformational change in behavioral health services and supports.

Objective 3: Accelerate learning and adaptation in public policies and programs.

The Commission will initiate and participate in partnerships that elevate community voice and the public interest in innovation projects, as well as the learnings that should inform changes in statutes, budgets, and regulations.

Goal 4: Relentlessly Drive Expectations

The Commission will work with all Californians to increase understanding, empathy, trust and empowerment as a way to bolster public ownership, expectations and accountability for improvement of the public behavioral health system.

Objective 1: Launch a public awareness strategy to reduce stigma, promote access care, and communicate the potential for recovery.

The strategy will be developed and managed with public partners, incorporate the Commission’s major initiatives, and be tailored to racial and geographic communities to inform and empower Californians to improve access to care and make better decisions regarding behavioral health.

Objective 2: Develop a behavioral health index.

The index will track and promote key indicators for behavioral health, including the seven negative outcomes, by county with benchmarks for peer counties, as well as peer states and nations to California.

Objective 3: Promote understanding of the progress that is being made and the advocacy that will result in further improvements.

The Commission will work with community voices, especially youth, to build understanding on the potential for additional healing and to inform and empower their advocacy for improvements with service providers and public decision-makers.