At 10 years old, Cheryl Guerin’s son began running away from school and after-school programs, struggling with a mental health condition that overwhelmed both him and his family.

For four years, they found themselves in and out of emergency rooms and spending long, stressful days at Hampstead Hospital, searching for answers and support.

Everything began to change when Guerin connected her family with FAST Forward (Families and Systems Together), New Hampshire’s wraparound services program. This family-centered program, which offers services like peer support, helps coordinate care to keep youth supported and stable within their home communities.

Guerin said that having access to wraparound services was “one of the key turning points” in her son’s recovery and in helping her family move out of crisis.

“Even though I had employer-sponsored health coverage, access to the FAST forward program was only possible once my son’s condition worsened to the point of eligibility for state services,” said Guerin at a press conference in Concord on Wednesday. “It should not have taken years of struggle before my family received the services that we needed.”

Today, her son is thriving. With a 3.6 GPA, he’s just a few credits away from graduating from high school.

For Guerin and mental health advocates, the inclusion of Senate Bill 128 in the state budget represents real progress.

The bill would require private insurance companies to cover care coordination services for children and youth, potentially allowing families to access support earlier and avoid the kind of crisis-driven interventions Guerin’s family faced.

Last year, New Hampshire spent $1.9 million to cover wraparound services for children with private insurance costs that, advocates argue, should be shared by insurance providers.

Michele Merritt, president of the nonprofit advocacy group New Futures, said the current system rewards insurance companies for refusing to cover behavioral health services for children.

“Health insurance companies have a perverse financial incentive to delay or deny access to new services because when they do, the burden and cost shift to the state to the taxpayer,” said Merritt. “Without timely access to middle-tier behavioral health supports like FAST Forward, children decompensate until the point that they require inpatient hospitalization. At that point, many children become eligible for Medicaid, and then the state assumes full financial responsibility for their care.”

Currently, wraparound services in New Hampshire are covered only by Medicaid, not by private insurers.

This gap in coverage means children often land in emergency rooms, waiting for days without proper treatment until an inpatient psychiatric bed becomes available.

As of Tuesday, 11 children in the state were waiting for such a bed, according to data from the state Department of Health and Human Services.

Susan Stearns, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness New Hampshire, said the Senate’s move to require private insurance companies to help cover these services could strengthen the state’s entire mental health system, expanding access without increasing state spending.

Denying children early access to mental health services has often resulted in them being physically restrained and injured — even in cases where they willingly agreed to receive treatment, Stearns said.

“I fear, one, these children are not traumatized by the very systems they are seeking help from, and then I think, will they ever seek help again?” Stearns said.

Sruthi Gopalakrishnan  can be reached at sgopalakr ishna n@cmonit or .com