I do not support the change in eligibility criteria.  As a mental health professional who has worked in a state psychiatric facility with adults and with youth and young adults in community based services and in residential treatment, the changes represent a step backward for Virginia, as opposed to a step forward.  Nationally, we see young people in dire need for more intensive community based mental health interventions, and not just brief intensive interventions like crisis stabilization that can only last 15 days.  Most often, school shootings involved someone who is under the age of 21yo with an SED or SMI, but who are also reliant on family members for basic needs, such as shelter and food.  Often times, the mental illness of youth is born from a dysfunctional family system or excaberated by it. State law often forces a young person to remain in the very environment that contributes to his/her psychiatric crisis. It is unreasonable to insist that such a young person would be able and ready to move out of that dysfunctional living environment on his/her 18th birthday (when he/she can lawfully leave a parent's home) without having the support of a mental health professional to be ready for his/her 18th birthday.  It is completely unreasonable to think that this young person is getting any healthy or adaptive lessons at home (in this example, which is our most common) regarding healthy or adaptive skills for living independently (caring for oneself, getting a job, having income, paying bills, not relying on the welfare system, etc...).  Otherwise, we are setting up young people with mental illness to be homeless or stay in the dysfunctional family home.  In other circumstances, when the family is trying their best to protect their child, but often they can't access more intensive services that could keep the youth, the family members (such as our Senator Deeds), and the community safe.  It is unreasonable to expect and assume that a young person with mental illness can live independently,even within 6 months.  Many times, while working at a state hospital, the most difficult phone call I had to make was to confirm for parents that their child in college in his/her freshman or sophomore year, had just had his/her first psychotic episode of Schizophrenia or episode of bipolar disorder.  I hope our legislators will imagine the heart break that this news brings, and then imagine that in order for their child to get an intensive service like MH Supports that will help him/her recover more rapidly, they have to move that child out of their family home within 6 months of having this first break.  Please also imagine that part of the stressors that may have led to the first episode was the stress of living independently in a college dorm, trying to manage school and work and personal care, without the structure and support of his/her family.  How many tragedies does Virginian constituents have to experience before we will stop considering saving money more of a priority than preventing more tragedies?  It is embarrassing that these new regulations that are solely about saving money are under an "emergency order", when the emergency in our state is the mental health of our young people.