This bill creates and modifies statutory structures to plan and coordinate behavioral health services for children, youth, families in the perinatal phase, and young adults. It amends RCW 74.09.4951 and RCW 71.36.025 and adds new sections to chapter 43.06 RCW to establish a children and youth behavioral health work group with expanded duties, a children and youth behavioral health leadership council appointed by the governor, and executive coordination housed in the governor’s office. The work group must identify barriers and opportunities across systems (including prenatal through age five), monitor implementation of legislation and programs, recommend strategies to improve inpatient and outpatient access and insurance parity, convene advisory groups (including a mandated school-based behavioral health and suicide prevention advisory group), and, subject to appropriations, convene an advisory group to develop a draft Washington thriving strategic plan. The bill requires the Health Care Authority to procure a third-party facilitator and to select entities to perform a statewide landscape analysis, a gap analysis (including prevalence estimates, disaggregated data, and cost estimates), and an evidence review to support the advisory group and strategic plan. Key deadlines include the advisory group’s first meeting by September 1, 2022, draft strategic plan materials delivered to the work group by August 1, 2025, and the work group submitting a final strategic plan to the governor and legislative committees with its 2025 annual report. The work group must provide annual recommendations beginning November 1, 2020, include alignment discussion beginning November 1, 2026, and the work group section expires December 30, 2031. Members with lived experience may be paid a stipend up to $200 per day when not otherwise compensated; staff support and reimbursement rules are specified and HCA must convene the work group at least twice a year. The bill also requires development of outcome-based performance measures for children’s mental health services by the Health Care Authority and the evidence-based practice institute, to be integrated into existing performance reporting systems. The leadership council must report to the governor, provide public updates, recommend policy and practice changes to implement the strategic plan, and include specified membership (state agency representatives, individuals with lived experience, a work group member, and two tribal representatives nominated by the governor’s Indian health advisory council), with tribal participation not replacing formal tribal consultation duties. The governor’s office may accept private or nonstate funding to support coordination and implementation. Some referenced text and specifics are not provided in the extracted material (for example, full language of section 5, complete strategic plan text in RCW 74.09.4951(6), and some agency identifications), so full legislative detail cannot be confirmed from the available excerpts.

If enacted, state agencies including the Health Care Authority, DCYF, DSHS, Department of Health, OSPI, managed care organizations, insurers, tribal partners, and behavioral health providers will face new coordination and planning duties: a work group and a governor-appointed leadership council must develop and implement a Washington thriving strategic plan, create outcome-based performance measures, and produce a draft plan by August 1, 2025 with final recommendations in the 2025 annual report. Practically, HCA must run regular meetings and competitively hire a third‑party facilitator and analysts to do landscape, gap, and evidence reviews, and people with lived experience can receive stipends; these steps will likely increase program administration and procurement costs, add new reporting and monitoring responsibilities for agencies and health plans, and push providers and insurers toward measurable service and parity changes, though many activities depend on future appropriations or private funding. The most affected parties are state agencies (HCA, governor’s office, DCYF, DSHS, DOH, OSPI), managed care organizations and private insurers, behavioral health providers, tribal governments, and families/youth with lived experience who will be asked to participate. Costs and staff time will rise for convening, procurement, analyses, and new performance reporting; the governor’s office may coordinate using existing resources or private funds but the scope and sustainability of funding and exact operational details remain unclear from the available text.