This is a summary only. To receive full legislative updates on a biweekly basis, you must be a member of MNAAP. The emails provide additional details about legislative issues that are not posted on our website and are for members only.
- Make sure to mark your calendar for the 2015 Pediatrician’s Day at the Capitol set for March 18, 2015. This important event is one of the key pieces of our advocacy effort, and your participation is important and impactful.
- Changes to the state’s mental health infrastructure and related statutes were the focus of a number of committee hearings and reports in recent weeks. A robust report from a panel of mental health professionals and advocates calling for renewed investment in the mental health workforce was released mid-month, and legislative committees considered a proposal to divert some mentally ill individuals from jails to mental health resources. The Mental Health Workforce Plan for Minnesota report notes that Minnesota lags the US average in the number of number for both psychiatrists and child and adolescent psychiatrists.
- Legislative committees continued to study changes to the state’s system of child protective services in the wake of a series of damning Minneapolis Star Tribune articles. The Governor’s Task Force on Child Protection unveiled its first recommendations, and legislation to implement the changes began to move through the committee process. The focus thus far has been on how reports of maltreatment are to be handled by county and state child protection officials. Additional bills related to the task force recommendations are likely to be introduced and receive attention in the coming weeks
