2025 – 2026 ALLIANCE ADVOCACY WORK
OUR PRIORITIES:
- Investing In the Behavioral Health Workforce. Maine continues to experience a critical workforce shortage in behavioral health. Particularly at a time of unprecedented demand for behavioral health services statewide, Maine must invest in its behavioral health workforce to ensure that quality services can be accessed by all who need it.
- Protect Maine’s commitment to providers and the direct care workforce by restoring the $132M COLAs in the biennial budget.
- Implement initiatives to strengthen and grow our workforce, such as a community behavioral health teaching agency pilot.
- Reduce barriers to licensure and promote incentives to enter and remain in community behavioral health.
- Enhancing the Continuum of Care for Children. Maine has a tremendous opportunity to improve its system of care for children through the DOJ settlement agreement. A more comprehensive approach is needed, with specific attention to supporting upstream and preventative services.
- Invest in the expansion of school-based services.
- Invest in the expansion of child ACT teams to Lewiston and Bangor.
- Stabilize our in-state residential treatment system.
- Expanding Access to Mental Health and SUD Treatment Services. The need for behavioral health services in Maine continues to grow. Continued programmatic investments and support for promising initiatives are needed to ensure better access to behavioral health care for all Mainers.
- Ensure the full implementation of all five Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs) in Maine.
- Protect investments in crisis receiving centers.
- Invest in detox reimbursement rates to ensure sustainability.