Children, youth, and families involved with child welfare and struggling with mental health issues may also struggle with co-occurring issues such as substance abuse or juvenile justice involvement. Resources on this page provide strategies and tools for increasing quality partnerships among these interrelated systems and their professionals in order to improve outcomes and family well-being.
Learn More from the Child Welfare Information Gateway
A part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services
Many children and youth in child welfare and those at risk of abuse and neglect have a variety of physical, mental, social, emotional, educational, and developmental needs. Systems of care is a service delivery approach that builds partnerships to create a broad, integrated process for meeting families’ multiple needs. Systems of care has been used as a catalyst for changing the way child and family service agencies organize, fund, purchase, and provide services for children, youth, and families with multiple needs. It enables cross-agency coordination of services for child welfare-involved children, youth, and families regardless of where or how they enter the system. Agencies work strategically, in partnership with families and other formal and informal supports, to address children’s unique needs.
Many children and youth in child welfare and those at risk of abuse and neglect have a variety of physical, mental, social, emotional, educational, and developmental needs. Systems of care is a service delivery approach that builds partnerships to create a broad, integrated process for meeting families’ multiple needs. Systems of care has been used as a catalyst for changing the way child and family service agencies organize, fund, purchase, and provide services for children, youth, and families with multiple needs. It enables cross-agency coordination of services for child welfare-involved children, youth, and families regardless of where or how they enter the system. Agencies work strategically, in partnership with families and other formal and informal supports, to address children’s unique needs.
Further resources from the Child Welfare Information Gateway from the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
The Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and Their Families Program: Evaluation Findings: Annual Report to Congress 2011 (PDF – 3,702 KB)
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (2013)
Discusses program evaluation findings of a federally funded initiative that supports systems of care for community-based mental health services for children, youth, and their families. The report presents fiscal year 2011 data that track service characteristics, use, and outcomes.
A Guide for Father Involvement in Systems of Care
(opens in new window) (PDF – 1,608 KB)
Martinez, Rider, Cayce, Forssell, Poirier, Hunt, Crawford, et al. (2013)
Technical Assistance Partnership for Child and Family Mental Health Offers strategies for systems and families to help fathers become more involved, including specific strategies for working with Hispanic/Latino, African-American, and Native American fathers. The guide provides tips about involving grandfathers; fathers who are young; gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning fathers; and those in families who are involved with child welfare. The guide also addresses challenges of working with dads who are incarcerated and those who are involved in substance abuse.
The Intersect of Health Reform and Systems of Care for Children and Youth With Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders and Their Families(opens in new window) (PDF – 722 KB)
Wotring & Stroul (2011)
National Technical Assistance Center for Children’s Mental Health, Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development
Provides an overview of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and discusses the synergy of health reform with the systems of care approach for serving children with behavioral health challenges and their families. Additionally, the brief articulates how the system of care approach can provide both a conceptual framework and specific strategies for implementation of the ACA in ways that ensure that the behavioral health service needs of children, adolescents, young adults, and their families will be met effectively.
Return on Investment in Systems of Care for Children With Behavioral Health Challenges(opens in new window) (PDF – 932 KB)
Stroul, Pires, Boyce, Krivelyova, & Walrath (2014)
National Technical Assistance Center for Children’s Mental Health, Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development
Reviews what we know to date about the return on investment, specifically cost savings, from systems of care based on national studies and data from States and communities. The purpose is to provide information to guide investments in systems of care for children, youth, and young adults with mental health challenges and their families and to lay the groundwork for future work on return on investment.
Consistent with the Ohio Department of Medicaid’s (ODM) and OhioMHAS, rules to promote high-quality service, the IHBT Fidelity Tool was developed to ensure compliance with IHBT service delivery standards. Providers choosing to bill services under Medicaid’s IHBT bundled rate must be certified. Certification assures minimum fidelity standards are being met.