Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative

The California Youth Behavioral Health Initiative (CYBHI) is a state-funded program designed to improve the mental and behavioral health services available to children and youth. It aims to ensure that young people have access to the care and support they need to thrive emotionally, mentally, and socially.

This program is a first-of-its-kind effort to make it easier for students and families to get the outpatient mental health care that they need and for districts to get the funding they need to continue to provide these mental health services.  

The CYBHI program prohibits health plans and insurers from passing any costs for these services to families. It provides other protections for families, as our reimbursement request will not affect your insurance coverage (i.e., you will not pay co-pays or deductibles). Receiving services at school will not reduce or impact students’ or their families' ability to obtain care outside of school.

Funding through this program will enable us to sustain and expand mental health services for students by implementing the following:  

• GUSD will ask for your student's health insurance information when they are referred for counseling so that we can submit reimbursement requests for eligible services we provide. We will keep this information secure and confidential, as required by state and federal laws.
• After providing behavioral health services or support to a student, GUSD will submit a reimbursement request.
• This reimbursement will come to the district directly from the insurance companies, at no cost to parents/guardians.  (Remember, state law prohibits passing the costs on to families.)
• Funding will be utilized to maintain and expand mental health services for our students.