Jake’s Law, signed into law in 2020 is designed to help curb rising rates of suicide and expand mental health access and treatment.
By Shaena Montanari and Maria Polletta Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting In March 2020, Gov. Doug Ducey signed into law a sweeping set of measures designed to help curb rising rates of suicide and expand access to mental health treatment for Arizona residents with and without insurance.
Yet, two years into the program, more than half of Arizona schools haven’t referred students under the law. Among traditional districts and charter systems that have opted in to refer, uneven staffing for school counselors and social workers has led to an unknown number of students getting overlooked for treatment.
“I know there are students who do need services and aren’t receiving them,” said Rebecca Carrier, counseling coordinator for Tucson Unified School District. To improve mental health parity in Arizona, the law created a website to educate residents about what insurers should be offering and how to file insurance complaints.
Fleege, who lost her sister to suicide in 2017, called the timing of the fund’s creation “a huge blessing in disguise.” Parents who consent to treatment for their children are generally happy with the school-based referral system, according to AHCCCS survey results obtained by AZCIR. One parent said what the access to care did for her son was “nothing short of incredible.”
At Tucson Unified School District, Carrier said one of its partner agencies could not accept new students for about eight weeks earlier this year, forcing officials to redirect students to other providers. “When we don’t have any capacity for therapy, we tell families, ‘You should go somewhere else,’” Huhn said. “The problem is, we’re sending them to places that don’t have capacity.”
For schools that may not have had the resources to develop referral policies which, by law, must be posted on their websites, the Arizona School Board Association released an advisory in July 2022 that includes sample language to help.
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