Indian Behavioral Health Act SB 6259 implementation
The Health Care Authority (HCA) is supporting the implementation of Senate Bill (SB) 6259, the Washington Indian Behavioral Health Act, which passed in 2020.
Tribal behavioral health and crisis response
We are working in partnership with Tribes and the American Indian Health Commission to:
- Develop an annual report on psychiatric treatment and evaluation bed utilization for American Indian (AI) and Alaska Natives (AN).
- Establish the tribal-designated crisis responder Washington Administrative Code (WAC).
- Educate and communicate changes to the behavioral health community on the changes to Chapter 71.05 Revised Code of Washington (RCW)
Crisis initiatives
In addition to this bill implementation, HCA continues partnership to work on several tribal crisis initiatives.
- Tribal Mobile Crisis Response
- Tribal DCR Implementation
- Tribal Crisis Coordination Protocols
- Native Resources Hub and Native and Strong Lifeline
Resources
- Annual report: psychiatric treatment and evaluation bed utilization for AI/ANs (October 2021)
- Tribal-designated crisis responder WAC, effective January 2022
- Changes to Joel’s Law:
- Dear Tribal Leader Letter (August 2020)
- Joel's Law fact sheet
- New Tribal Crisis Coordination Protocols Template