RESOURCES

May is Mental Health Awareness Month

The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) is proud to share with you one of the State’s newest resources to support children, youth, and families in accessing the mental and behavioral healthcare they need: BEACON. Please read the message below to learn more about BEACON, how to use it, and how to share it with your professional networks, colleagues, and – most importantly – your patients.

BEACON, developed by Google in partnership with the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) and the Illinois Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative, creates a single- entry point where parents — or anyone helping a child or family — can easily find state-funded and community-based services youth may be eligible for and help connect them. Launched in January, BEACON is a secure platform that can link families with Resource Coordinators and Clinical Specialists in the Division of Mental Health who can help find appropriate resources.

BEACON also offers parents the option to create an account where they can upload documents related to their child’s care and choose to work with a navigator who can provide support for the process of obtaining school-based services. Enabling state agency partners to work together in one platform, BEACON also speeds up the process of acquiring residential treatment and in-home support for youth with complex needs.

We invite you to use the social media toolkit, developed by an interagency communications team, to share information about BEACON with your networks. You can also find family-friendly flyers in seven languages and other shareable resources online here.

Learn more about BEACON from the Illinois Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Chief Officer Dana Weiner here or by going here: IDHS: Chief Officer for Children's Behavioral Health Transformation. You can also reach out to dhs.dmh.beacon@illinois.gov with any questions.