King County Behavioral Health Advisory Board

The King County Behavioral Health Advisory Board (BHAB) is a volunteer board. The Board advises the King County Executive and County Council on mental health and substance use matters. This includes education, prevention, treatment, crisis response, and regional behavioral health services.

The BHAB is the advisory body for the King County Behavioral Health Administrative Services Organization (BHASO) which oversees behavioral health programs and crisis services. The BHAB is very familiar with mental health, substance use, and crisis services, and also serves as the advisory body for the King County Crisis Care Center Levy.

The Board’s responsibilities include:

• Uplifting the input of individuals with mental health and/or substance use conditions to improve services;
• Advocating for the needs of individuals living with mental health and/or substance use conditions at a local and state level;
• Building relationships in the community to help ensure behavioral health and physical health are treated together;
• Approving King County’s Mental Health Block Grant (MHBG) and Substance Use Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery Services (SUPTRS) Block Grant spending plans;
• Visiting each crisis care center annually to understand the perspectives of operators, staff, and those being served;
• Reporting on the Crisis Care Center Levy through online annual reports; and
• Providing quality improvement feedback to key partners.

Membership

We currently have openings and are recruiting for certain districts. Please contact our board liaison for more information: Monica De Leon Carvajal: mdeleonc@kingcounty.gov

The board is made up of 15 volunteer members. The law requires that the board be broadly representative of the diverse populations that live in the county and of the persons served by the public behavioral health system. Representation from King County’s rich ethnic and cultural diversity is actively sought. People with a lived experience with mental illness or substance use disorders now in recovery and family members of people who have received services in the public behavioral health system must make up at least 51% of the board. The board also strives to achieve broad countywide representation. Length of term is three years, which is renewable. See bottom of the page for a list of board members.

Meetings

Meetings are held the first Thursday of the month from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. via Teams. Meetings are open to the public.

Per RCW 42.30 Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA), all meetings of governing bodies of public agencies are required to be open to the public. The Governor has lifted the OPMA waiver for in-person meetings. Effective July 7, 2022, the monthly BHAB meeting will occur in Conference Room 121 of the Chinook Building at the above address. BHAB will still meet online but pursuant to the OPMA requirement, the board shall adhere to the requirement of meeting in a physical location.

For any questions, please contact: Monica De Leon Carvajal
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