Monthly, cross system stakeholders are meeting to discuss best practices and develop tools to ensure that youth in foster care receive timely and quality clinical assessments that are tailored to their unique needs. The Pathways to Permanency Project is a collaborative effort sponsored by Vaya Health, an LME-MCO in North Carolina, that seeks to improve the outcomes for youth in foster care. The project's “Quality Clinical Assessment to Drive Services Workgroup” is a crucial part of this effort, bringing together staff from Vaya Health, county Department of Social Service offices’ child welfare staff, behavioral health providers, and child placing agencies to develop a pathway for youth in foster care to be referred for a trauma-informed Comprehensive Clinical Assessment (CCA) as soon as they come into custody. The goal of the workgroup is to ensure that youth in foster care receive the services and support they need by receiving a prompt clinical assessment, while on their permanency journey.
The workgroup recognizes that timely and comprehensive clinical assessments are a critical first step in providing effective services to youth in foster care. The assessment provides a comprehensive understanding of the child's strengths, challenges, and needs, which helps inform the development of a treatment plan tailored to the child's unique needs.
To ensure that youth in foster care receive timely and quality CCAs, the workgroup is developing a proposal for a pathway that will be implemented across all County DSS offices within Vaya Health’s catchment. This pathway will include training for DSS staff on how to identify youth in need of a CCA and how to refer them to a behavioral health provider. The workgroup is also working to ensure the agency completing the assessment has the tools and resources they need to conduct timely, quality and trauma informed CCAs.
Once the CCA is completed, the provider will ensure that the child is connected to the most appropriate treatment depending on their strengths-based assessment of the child's needs. This will help to ensure that youth in foster care receive the services and support they need to support them during their permanency journey.
The “Quality Clinical Assessment to Drive Services Workgroup” is an important part of the Pathways to Permanency Project. By ensuring that youth in foster care receive timely and quality clinical assessments, the workgroup is helping to improve outcomes for these vulnerable children and youth.
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