Equity Agenda Diverts Youth Mental Care

California’s $15+ billion youth behavioral‑health overhaul centrally framed as equity and prevention redirected money to school screening, community‑defined practices, and surveillance rather than building psychiatric residential capacity for severely ill children. The mismatch between rhetoric and resource allocation coincided with continued boarding, failed placements, and at least one high‑profile death, now the subject of litigation. — If states adopt equity‑first behavioral‑health models without protecting acute‑care capacity, they risk large spending programs that worsen outcomes for the most clinically needy and invite political and legal backlash.