Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) play an important role in the treatment of mental illness and substance use disorder (SUD) in children and adolescents, including those in foster care. Relative to their peers in the general population, children and youth in foster care are more likely to experience behavioral health conditions; however, several studies suggest they are not receiving needed services.
In this issue brief, we present analyses of the experience of adolescents age 12–17 who reported staying overnight in foster care in the past 12 months using data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health from 2015 to 2019. Specifically, our analysis examines selected characteristics, prevalence of certain behavioral health conditions, and access to services among these youth and compares the experience of youth with Medicaid or CHIP to that of youth with private coverage where possible.
We found that the vast majority (63.5 percent) of non-institutionalized youth age 12–17 who stayed overnight in foster care were enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP. Many of these youth experience behavioral health conditions and receive treatment at high rates. For example, more than a quarter of these youth reported experiencing a major depressive episode at some point in their lifetime and nearly one in five reported having an SUD in the past year. Access to non-specialty mental health treatment was high and Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries generally received mental health services at similar rates as their peers with private coverage.