The director of California's mental health commission traveled to London this summer courtesy of a state vendor while he was helping to prevent a $360 million budget cut that would have defunded the company's contract. Emails and calendars reviewed by KFF Health News show Toby Ewing, executive director of the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission, made efforts to protect funding for Kooth, a London-based digital mental health company the state hired to develop a virtual tool to help tackle its youth mental health crisis. Ewing pressed key legislative staffers to maintain its contract, even as Democratic Gov.
Gavin Newsom and lawmakers proposed cuts in the face of California's $45 billion deficit. When Ewing and three commissioners — Mara Madrigal-Weiss, the commission chair; Bill Brown; and Steve Carnevale — left for London in June, Ewing wasn't sure whether he had saved Kooth's funding. On the second day of their trip, staff informed him that lawmakers had restored the money.
A few days later, he emailed Kooth Chief Operating Officer Kate Newhouse suggestions he had shared with Assembly and Senate staff to improve Kooth's youth teletherapy app. "We expect you to be involved in whatever we dream up," Ewing wrote to Newhouse in another email. It's unclear why Kooth picked up a $15,000 tab for state officials to travel to London.
It's also unclear why Ewing pushed to protect its app from a spending cut. The commission is a 16-member independent body.