1039: How Illinois and Google Are Transforming Children’s Behavioral Health

JOHN SHEEHAN: 

This is Public Health Review Morning Edition for December 9, 2025. I'm John Sheehan, with news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

As part of our Spotlight series on artificial intelligence and public health, today we're exploring the BEACON Portal, a collaboration between Google and the state of Illinois that's transforming how public health data is used to drive smarter, faster decisions. This project represents a unique partnership, not only between Google and Illinois, but also among multiple state human service agencies working together to improve how families access behavioral health care. Our guests are Dr. Dana Weiner, a clinical psychologist and senior policy fellow at Chapin Hall in Chicago, and who serves in the governor's office as a chief officer for children's behavioral health transformation.

DANA WEINER: 

That project has really evolved into a system-wide transformation effort that seeks to adjust capacity so that we have enough of what we need, streamline access to services for families, and allow us to get upstream of problems with earlier detection.

SHEEHAN: 

A little later, we'll hear from Julia Strehlow, a licensed clinical social worker in Illinois who is currently serving as a senior advisor to the director at the Illinois Department of Public Health. But first, I wanted Dr. Weiner to explain how BEACON leverages technology to improve access to services for families.

WEINER: 

So, BEACON is really a central strategy among the 12 recommendations that we're working on from the Blueprint for Transformation, which came out in the spring of 2023.And BEACON is a technological application that is designed to give families a single place to go with easy access to information. But behind the scenes, BEACON enables the state agencies to communicate securely and safely with each other about cases so that they can expedite service linkage. But it does a number of other things too, leveraging this powerful technology. Namely, it speeds the process of understanding what kids are eligible for. So, there's lots of information out there about different state-funded and community-based programs, but BEACON uses technology to do what it takes humans a long time to do, that is, check all the eligibility criteria and ensure that kids are matched with services that they are able to receive. It also bridges the gaps between our human service sector agencies, which historically have had a very hard time working together collaboratively because of either legal or technological barriers between their somewhat siloed agencies. This gives them a platform in which they can all securely and legally communicate with each other, and that's something we couldn't do without this technology. Furthermore, the technology simplifies things for families. It allows them to put documents and requests and status updates all in one place in an account on this platform, which makes it much easier for them to navigate the process of obtaining mental health services for a young person.

SHEEHAN: 

Can you tell us a little bit more about the role of artificial intelligence in BEACON? Does BEACON rely on AI? And if it does, can you tell us how?

WEINER: 

BEACON does not use generative AI. There are no chatbots or otherwise automated interaction features. But what BEACON does do is it reads the information that is submitted about a young person and their needs, and it quickly can provide information about the services that a youth is eligible for. So, in that sense, the technology can do this more quickly than humans can. So, it is a form of artificial intelligence, or AI. It uses a matching algorithm, but that algorithm is transparent. It's actually in Appendix E of the Blueprint for Transformation, which guides all of our work in Illinois to improve behavioral health services. The algorithm that runs, which is a form of AI, the algorithm that runs in BEACON, quickly does what it took people a long time to do, and provides those matches, but it doesn't generate responses for families. In fact, the technology makes the matching faster, so that the people are free to interact with each other, and that's really one of the benefits of this approach, is that it frees up the helpers to spend more time actually having one-on-one communication with family members.

SHEEHAN: 

Now considering privacy and security concerns, how is the information protected in the BEACON context?

WEINER: 

So, the information that's submitted to BEACON is encrypted and stored in the same cloud-based platform that the state uses for other sensitive protected health information, and further, the information can only be unlocked once a custodial caregiver gives permission for that information to be shared with the state agencies and their partners that are trying to expedite services. So, in this way, parents and guardians know exactly who's seeing the information. Otherwise, it's actually locked even within the platform. This platform is housed in what it- the information is an encrypted, cloud-based platform, but it's housed at the Department of Human Services, so no other outside entity- like Google built BEACON, but Google doesn't have any access to the information that's contained in BEACON. In fact, their involvement in maintaining it ended when the site launched, and we use DHS and their contracted developers to maintain it.

SHEEHAN: 

And how is the process of developing BEACON unique from, say, typical IT development in public health agencies.

WEINER: 

This process was definitely unique among all of the other tech development activities that I've been a part of over the last 25 years, in which I've been working on improving service accessibility for children and families. And one of the most remarkable differences is that families were engaged in this process, throughout the process, including at the beginning. So, some of the features that BEACON offers to families, including the one I mentioned earlier about being able to upload documents, is something that parents said they wanted. That was not something that was in our initial technical specifications, but because we included stakeholders, not just family members with lived experience. Also, we included providers and state agency representatives, but we heard from people at every stage in the process, including the beginning, about the things they wanted. So, this technology was really built with people and processes in mind to try to overcome some of the barriers and speed things up. I would also say that when we came to Google with the specifications for BEACON, we had already been using a prototype for this system for two years, and that's kind of uncommon. Also, early on, after I was appointed by the governor in 2022, we convened a group of interagency representatives to try to expedite hospital discharge for kids who are stuck beyond medical necessity in the hospital, and in working toward getting these kids to the services they needed, we learned a lot about how to work effectively together and what kinds of features we would need in a technological tool. So, by the time we came to Google, we knew exactly what the technology needed to do, and then we could bring in other experts and people with lived experience to talk about additional features. We also were able, so we were able also to develop it very quickly. So, Google was able to develop BEACON in like seven and a half months. And all of those stakeholders who informed this process participated with us in testing the tool, so they participated in the design, and then once there were initial versions of the of the application, they were our user testers, so they went in and tried to use it to go through these processes and gave us feedback about what was working and what wasn't working. So, I think all of that was pretty unique in my experience, anyway.

SHEEHAN: 

And how do you anticipate this technology evolving in the human service delivery space?

WEINER: 

In the context of BEACON, we're going to continue to incorporate because we're doing lots of other things to transform our system, and the technology is a key piece of infrastructure, but it also has to be dynamic, and we have to be able to continue to iterate it. And that means including new resources that are available to families and including new features as we hear from families and providers and others. So, we're doing that all the time, iterating it. We also, though, are building other components. And so, some of those things include a statewide resource referral tool that will allow what we call 'closed loop referrals.' That means the ability to see whether there's a built availability at a provider and to actually make an appointment for someone, as well as incorporating screening tools and assessments and other things to build out the system. So, we have the core centerpiece of it, and now we're continuing to build out some of the other functionality using the same innovative processes.

SHEEHAN: 

Now I want to bring in Julia Strehlow, senior advisor at the Illinois Department of Public Health, to discuss how that department has been involved in the work of BEACON.

STREHLOW: 

So, the Children's Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative that Dr. Weiner leads, partners with six state agencies in Illinois that all have some role in serving children, and the Illinois Department of Public Health is, of course, one of those. The Illinois Department of Public Health leading communications work to roll out BEACON statewide. One of the bright spots from this work across the last several months has been we partnered with our state agency that regulates professional licenses in Illinois to reach more than 400,000 professionals across the state, such as doctors and licensed behavioral health professionals, to tell them about BEACON and explain how to use it. We did this right at the beginning of May, in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, and that led to a dramatic increase in visits to the site and usage of the tool across May of 2025 as well as throughout the summer. In the future, the Illinois Department of Public Health hopes to be able to do more utilizing information from BEACON to drive system transformation, which can contribute to positive population health outcomes. So, it's been really exciting to take a public health lens to the rollout of this important tool.

SHEEHAN: 

Our guests have been Dr. Dana Weiner, a clinical psychologist and senior policy fellow at Chapin Hall in Chicago, and who serves in the governor's office as a chief officer for the Children's Behavioral Health Transformation. And Julia Strehlow, a licensed clinical social worker in Illinois who is currently serving as a senior advisor to the director at the Illinois Department of Public Health.

SHEEHAN: 

This has been Public Health Review Morning Edition. I'm John Sheehan for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.