§290aa–0b Interdepartmental Serious Mental Illness Coordinating Committee

Summary

The Secretary must set up the Interdepartmental Serious Mental Illness Coordinating Committee and follow the Federal Advisory Committee Act unless the law says otherwise. The Committee must meet at least 2 times each year and ends on September 30, 2027. It will be led by the HHS Secretary (or a designee) and include other top federal officials or their designees (for example, the Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use; the Attorney General; and the Secretaries or heads of Veterans Affairs, Defense, Housing and Urban Development, Education, Labor, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Administration for Community Living, and Social Security). The Secretary must also appoint at least 14 nonfederal public members. Those members must include people with lived experience, family members, leaders from research or service groups, several licensed mental health clinicians, specialists who work with children, people with experience working with minorities and underserved groups, a peer support specialist, a judge, a law enforcement or corrections officer, and someone experienced with services for people who are homeless. Nonfederal members serve 3-year terms and can be reappointed. The Committee may form working groups made up of its members or their designees. No later than 1 year and 5 years after December 29, 2022, the Committee must send reports to Congress and other federal agencies. Each report must summarize research and progress on preventing, diagnosing, treating, and helping people recover from serious mental illness and serious emotional disturbance, and on access to services. The reports must evaluate how federal programs affect public health, using measures such as suicide and suicide attempts; rates of serious mental illness, emotional disturbance, and substance use disorders; overdoses and overdose deaths; emergency hospitalizations and emergency department boarding or visits; interactions with the criminal justice system; homelessness and unemployment; changes in employment and school or job training enrollment; and the quality of mental health and substance use treatment. The reports must also give specific recommendations for how agencies can better coordinate mental health services for adults with serious mental illness and children with serious emotional disturbance.