AB 1215: Mental Health Services Act: innovative programs: research.

Existing law, the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA), an initiative measure enacted by the voters as Proposition 63 at the November 2, 2004, statewide general election, establishes the continuously appropriated Mental Health Services Fund to fund various county mental health programs. Existing law establishes the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission to oversee various parts of the act, as specified. Existing law authorizes the act to be amended by a ²/₃ vote of the Legislature if the amendments are consistent with, and further the intent of, the act. Existing law authorizes the Legislature to add provisions to clarify procedures and terms of the act by majority vote.

Existing law requires county mental health programs to develop plans for innovative programs, to be funded as provided, and requires the innovative programs to have specified purposes, including increasing access to services and underserved groups, increasing the quality of services, and promoting interagency collaboration. Existing law requires all projects included in the innovative program portion of a county plan to meet specified requirements. Existing law provides that an innovative project may affect virtually any aspect of mental health practices or assess a new or changed application of a promising approach to solving persistent, seemingly intractable mental health challenges, including, but not limited to, education and training for service providers, advocacy, services and interventions, or research, among other things. Existing law requires county mental health programs to expend funds for their innovation programs upon approval by the commission.

Existing law, the California Blueprint for Research to Advance Innovations in Neuroscience (Cal-BRAIN) Act of 2014, requests the Regents of the University of California to establish the Cal-BRAIN program to leverage Californias research assets and the federal Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiatives funding opportunities to accelerate the development of brain mapping techniques to achieve certain goals, including, among others, the development of a dynamic map of the human brain that provides researchers, physicians, and engineers with the knowledge necessary to develop new treatments and technologies that will improve lives and reduce the costs of providing health care.

This bill would, if research is chosen for an innovative project, require a county mental health program to consider, but not require a county to implement, research of the brain and its physical and biochemical processes that may have broad applications, but that have specific potential for understanding, treating, and managing mental illness, including, but not limited to, research through the Cal-BRAIN program or other collaborative, public-private initiatives designed to map the dynamics of neuron activity.