This bill establishes a children and youth behavioral health work group (amending RCW 74.09.4951), creates specified advisory groups including a school-based behavioral health and suicide prevention advisory group and a strategic plan advisory group, and adds new sections to chapter 43.06 RCW to create a children and youth behavioral health leadership council and related executive coordination functions. It also amends RCW 71.36.025 to align children's mental health system goals and performance measures with the Washington thriving strategic plan (RCW 74.09.4951(6)). The changes create new statutory bodies and duties, set membership and appointing authorities for the work group, require cochair selection (one legislative member and one Health Care Authority representative), and require the HCA representative to convene at least two meetings per year. Procedural changes require the Health Care Authority to competitively procure a third‑party facilitator and to select, by interagency agreement or procurement, an entity to perform multiple analyses to inform a strategic plan: a statewide behavioral health landscape analysis, a gap and prevalence/cost analysis, and a review of evidence‑based practices and workforce strategies. The strategic plan advisory group must produce a draft strategic plan and materials to the work group by August 1, 2025; the work group must adopt a final strategic plan and submit it to the governor and relevant legislative committees with the work group’s 2025 annual report. The bill sets other reporting deadlines (annual recommendations beginning November 1, 2020; progress reports for 2022 and 2024; and a requirement that annual reports beginning November 1, 2026 describe alignment with the final strategic plan), provides staff support roles, prescribes travel and stipend rules (members with lived experience may receive up to $200 per day), and makes the work group section expire December 30, 2031. The bill also directs the governor, using existing resources to the extent possible, to support interagency coordination to follow the strategic plan framework, to permit use of private funding for the plan, and to maintain an executive coordination officer for the children and youth system of care to coordinate implementation and monitor equity impacts. It requires agencies to align children and youth behavioral health activities with the strategic plan and to integrate children’s mental health performance measures into systems under chapter 71.24 RCW. Relevant parts of the text are missing from the provided extracts: section 3 (the establishment and duties of the executive coordination officer) and section 5 (details of the leadership council) are referenced but not included; portions of membership lists and the amendment to RCW 71.36.025 are cut off; and one instance refers to “the department” without identifying which department. These gaps prevent a complete description of some membership details, full lists of required outcome measures, and full statutory language for the executive coordination officer and leadership council.

If enacted, the bill creates a permanent structure of groups and officials to plan and coordinate children and youth behavioral health across state agencies: a multi-stakeholder work group with a school-based advisory subgroup and a strategic plan advisory group, a governor-appointed leadership council, and an executive coordination officer in the governor’s office. The Health Care Authority must hire outside facilitators and contractors to produce a statewide landscape and gap analyses, provide a draft strategic plan to the work group by August 1, 2025, and HCA will provide staff support; members with lived experience can receive stipends up to $200 per day. The work group’s authority expires December 30, 2031. The practical effects fall most heavily on the Health Care Authority, which must run procurements, fund analyses, and staff the effort, and on state agencies (DOH, DSHS/DCYF, OSPI and others) that will need to align planning, reporting, and programs with the resulting strategic plan and newly required outcome measures developed with the evidence-based practice institute. There will be new costs for contracts, staff time, and possible stipends, and some activities (like convening the strategic plan advisory group and OSPI staffing) depend on available appropriations, so the exact timing, scope, and funding responsibilities remain uncertain.