Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Health and Human Services, to which was referred S.B. No. 2150 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds to expand the funding base of the Department of Health to ensure that parents with children under age nineteen are allowed the option to participate in residential substance abuse treatment.

Testimony in support of this measure was received from the Department of Health, Hawaii Youth Services Network, Blueprint for Change, and the YMCA Neighborhood Place of Puna.

Your Committees find that when a parent has a substance abuse problem, the entire family is affected, including the children. The most effective treatment programs involve family members, as well as the substance abuser. Your Committees further find that parents who are the primary caregivers to their children may be unable to enter residential treatment programs because no one can care for their children. This leads to a reluctance of parents to seek substance abuse services.

Your Committees have amended this measure by incorporating an amendment submitted by the Department of Health to include therapeutic living homes.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Health and Human Services that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2150, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2150, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.