New Law Makes Changes Across Health and Human Services

Governor Cooper signed a new law on November 6^th that makes a myriad of changes to health and human service related areas.  S537 is now SL 2019-240 and includes many provisions that will change professional licensure, social services, and safety in State facilities and child care institutions.   While the overall theme of the bill is health and human services, the provisions cross a wide spectrum of issues.  Many of the provisions of the bill were originally included in other legislation and, most notably, in the budget bill.  As the long legislative session wore on and it became clear that the budget was stymied, stakeholders could not use the “usual” paths to make statutory changes.  The result is a new law with provisions that touch on many unrelated topics. 

Included in the new law are changes that:

• Renames “Licensed Professional Counselor” to “Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor”; allows for reciprocity of the license; and creates a support program for licensees experiencing mental health or substance use issues..
• Renames the “Substance Abuse Professional Practice Board” to “NC Addiction Specialists Professional Practice Board” with changes to the members of the board, creates a support program for licensees experiencing mental health or substance use issues, updates language from “substance abuse” to “substance use disorder”, discontinues the certification for Substance Abuse Residential Facility Director.
• Amends the Social Worker Practice Act to detail requirements around Clinical Social Work licensure, specifies requirements around credentials.
• Strengthens the Secretary of DHHS’s power to resolve inadequacies in performance of a local department of social services as it relates to child protective, adoption or foster care services. 
• Expands immunity in child abuse and neglect to include individuals who provide consultation, evaluations and other assistance.
• Increases the Secretary of DHHS’s authority to appoint “special police officers” and expands to include all State facility campuses where special police officers can be deployed, defines security recordings at State facilities.
• Adds to Chapter 122C of the NC Statutes a definition of Traumatic Brain Injury.
• Postpones the expansion or replacement of the NC FAST case management pilot.
• Redesigns the Adult Care Home payment methodology to allow for new service definitions and payment models under managed care. 
• Requires criminal history record checks by child caring institutions and specifies when an individual cannot be employed based on the results of the criminal history record check.
• Adds to the Involuntary Commitment statutory language to specify procedures when an adult is adjudicated incompetent, postpones the timeframe for local crisis plans to August 1, 2020 at the latest.

Adds specificity to