Tennessee disabilities department seeks funding boost to programs

The Tennessee Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities is seeking a $72 million budget increase to expand early intervention services for small children and crisis care for adults.

The proposed increase would expand a program that provides emergency intervention for people with disabilities experiencing mental health crises. Demand for Start Assessment and Stabilization Teams continues to increase. Last year the crisis teams intervened in 367 instances; this year, the number has grown to 602.

The department is also seeking to fund new beds to stabilize people experiencing mental health crises that would serve as a “much better place for them to stay than a hospital or a jail,” Commissioner Brad Turner said last week.

Judges, police and court officials have been seeking the service expansion, Turner said in making the proposal to widen the reach of the Start program — currently operating in five regions — to nine regions. The expansion would reduce the response time in a mental health emergency to under one hour, he said.

The department is also seeking to serve kids who receive nursing home respiratory care. Currently, 20 Tennessee children in the custody of the Department of Children’s Services are being housed in out-of-state nursing homes, Turner said. Funding for eight new in-state slots would bring some of those children home.

The department is also seeking new funding to expand the number of social workers serving children with disabilities or severe medical needs in the Katie Beckett program. Currently, social workers in the program are responsible for, on average, 61 children. The goal of a budget boost would be to bring the caseload average below 50.