Children’s Mental Health Plan

ICMHP is charged with developing and monitoring a plan to build comprehensive and coordinated mental health services, programs, and supports for Illinois children and their families. The Partnership created its initial plan in 2005, with a brief update to the strategic priorities in 2012. We are excited to announce that for the first time in 17 years, ICMHP and the State of Illinois have developed a new Children’s Mental Health Plan to improve the overall wellbeing of all Illinois youth and families.

Announcing the Illinois Children’s Mental Health Plan!

ICMHP 2022 Children’s Mental Health Plan

The Illinois Children’s Mental Health Plan Release Webinar

In honor of Children’s Mental Health Week and Mental Health Month, we are excited to announce we have released our highly anticipated Children’s Mental Health Plan for Illinois where we share our journey to develop the Plan and our goals for improving child and family mental health and wellness. The webinar  featured remarks by ICMHP Interim Chair Dr. Sameer Vohra, ICMHP Director Amanda M. Walsh, and Dr. Dana Weiner, the newly announced Director of the Governor’s Office Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative. The webinar provided an overview of the Plan’s 5 goals. 

Over the past 17 months, ICMHP has worked with stakeholders from across the state to develop a systematic, comprehensive, and interdisciplinary plan that would address the needs of children, families, and communities. Our priority from the start has been to use a whole child and family approach that prioritizes equity, diversity, and inclusion. In order for the State of Illinois to be best prepared to serve the mental health and wellness of all children, families, and communities. We developed five goals, which were shared each day during Children’s Mental Health Week through our newsletter and social media accounts.

Plan development process

In addition to our community input, the Plan is being developed through four working groups:

Social Determinants of Health

  Prevention

Early Intervention

  Treatment

These workgroups are charged with creating recommendations to address the unique needs that a child and their family will face at different points of time and across systems on a mental health and wellness continuum. The workgroup processes are led by our Steering Committee, whose role is to help align the recommendations across all four workgroups into one final Children’s Mental Health Plan. More information about our Steering Committee is below.

You can access information about the Plan and development process here. If you have questions, please email icmhp@luriechildrens.org.

Steering Committee

The Steering Committee is made up of workgroup co-chairs, system experts, the ICMHP Interim Chair, ICMHP Director, and ICMHP staff. The following button titled “Member Resources” allows Steering Committee members to access background materials and general information to aid in the Plan development process. All Steering Committee meeting minutes and final materials developed by the Steering Committee will be available below.

Member Resources

Meeting minutes:

• 21.7.08_ICMHP Steering Committee_Meeting 1 Minutes
• 21.7.13_ICMHP Steering Committee_Meeting 2 Minutes
• 21.7.21_ICMHP Steering Committee_Meeting 3 Minutes
• 21.7.27_ICMHP Steering Committee_Meeting 4 Minutes
• 19.8.19_ICMHP Steering Committee_Meeting 5 Minutes