KINGSTON - The New York State Office of Mental Health is in process of developing a plan to better serve the state’s children, known as the Children’s Mental Health Plan for New York State.

Officials are traveling across the state conducting forums and seeking input to the plan, which is in the process of being finished.

“We’re probably two-thirds of the way through an exhaustive, engaged planning process that’s involved young people and family members across the state,” said David Woodlock, the deputy commissioner for department’s division children and family services, prior to the start of the forum in Kingston on Wednesday.

About 150 mental health professionals and parents attended the forum at the Holiday Inn, and Woodlock said the plan is being developed because the mental health needs have become so great regarding children.

“One of things that is missing in that organizational context is the responsibility for the success of children,” he said.

“We’re seeing a lot of these kids, finding their way, as most kids do, into pediatrics and general practice environments and those physicians doing the best the best they have with the tools they have.”

But now, said Woodlock, the plan is being developed to help ensure there’s greater family involvement instead of more institutionalization for children who need care.

“We can do it in a way that genuinely supports families in the way, so they take care of their kids,” he said.

Barbara Callahan, of Hopewell Junction, works for the Office of Mental Health in Poughkeepsie. She has two adult children who needed services when they were growing up. And she said those services helped her children

“Had it not been for mental health services, we’d be in very different places today,” she said.

And as she’s personally lived through the needs of children and watched how care has progressed to help others, Callahan said families and children are better served together.

“Things have a changed a lot since then,” she said. “There’s a real focus of not just working with kids but with families and children in the context of their families.”