Washington Thriving has submitted its 2024 Progress Report to the Legislature as part of the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Work Group (CYBHWG) annual report. Both of these reports are publicly available and can be found at the below links:

• CYBHWG Recommendations

• Washington Thriving Progress Report

This report includes information on the work that has been completed over the last year, a summary of the related outputs, and a look forward into the final year of strategic plan development. The learnings from the last year will support the development and execution of a workplan for 2025 that will strategically outline the needed adjustments, prioritization, and activities to successfully produce the strategic plan and submit to the legislature by November of 2025.

Throughout this Fall, Washington Thriving has conducted community engagement activities and listening sessions both virtually, and in-person across the state focused on building community connections. These events included participation in the Washington State Community Connectors in Leavenworth, the Peer Pathways Conference in Yakima, attending and presenting at a meeting of the statewide Family Youth System Partner Roundtable (FYSPRT), the Department of Behavioral Health and Recovery's Coalition Leadership Institute, and the Tribal Centric Behavioral Health Advisory Board, and discussions at regional and local meetings and coalitions in Bellingham, Tonasket, and throughout Southeastern and Western parts of the state.

While analysis of what we heard is ongoing, initial reports for the activities at Community Connectors and Peer Pathways can be viewed in Appendix E of the 2024 Washington Thriving Progress Report. Once all the Fall community engagement activity information is analyzed and reported in early 2025, the resulting themes and insights will add to Washington Thriving's understanding of the current landscape of behavioral health in Washington and will inform the statewide Prenatal-through-Age-25 (P-25) Behavioral Health Strategic Plan.

Findings and Recommendations

Washington Thriving is hosting the Thriving Together Theater to support the development of a system model for the P-25 Strategic Plan. This event is open for interested parties to observe as members of the core systems modeling team, including system experts, collaborate and lay the groundwork for the collaborative efforts needed to improve behavioral health outcomes across the state. The two sessions hosted in December are the initiation of this workplan, slated to continue through March 2025.

If you are interested in attending one of the two sessions, please contact the project team at wathriving@healthmanagement.com

Findings and Recommendations

Washington Thriving commissioned four "discovery sprints" (short research efforts) to dive deep into a few specific issues facing children, youth, and young adult behavioral health in Washington State. Topics focused specifically on:

• Behavioral health and complex hospital discharge

• Transition-age youth and complex behavioral health

• Behavioral health during pregnancy

• K-12 school-based behavioral health

These have wrapped up and the reports with recommendations on how to carry the takeaways from each sprint can be found here.

Discussion Sessions

Join one of the four optional discussion sessions to explore the findings and recommendations from the above discovery sprints. Your input will inform how these recommendations are incorporated into the P-25 Strategic Plan.

Timing details and information on how to join are included in the “upcoming events” section below.

The initial report scoping the quantitative analysis to be done as part of Washington Thriving can be found here. The continuation of this workstream is under way and will ultimately come together with other workstreams to demonstrate the current landscape and gaps in the behavioral health system in Washington.

Washington Thriving Advisory Group Meeting

December 3rd, 2024 - 2:30-5:30pm PST

Discovery Sprint Discussions

12/4/2024 - 3:00-4:00pm PST | Transition-age youth
12/5/2024 - 2:00-3:00pm PST | Complex hospital discharge
12/6/2024 - 12:30-1:30pm PST | Behavioral health during pregnancy
12/9/2024 - 12:30-1:30pm PST | K-12 School-based

If you are interested in attending any of the above sessions, please contact the project team at wathriving@healthmanagement.com

December Discussion Groups

Parents and Caregivers: December 18, 2024 - 10:00-11:30am PST

Youth and Young Adults: December 18, 2024 - 4:00-5:30pm PST

System Partners: December 19th, 2024 - 1:00-2:30pm PST