COMPREHENSIVE SERVICES FOR AT-RISK YOUTH

PROGRAM MISSION: To ensure coordination of high quality, cost effective services to families whose children are at risk of placement outside of their homes and community by facilitating collaboration among families, child serving agencies, and private providers. The goal of this coordinated effort is to preserve and strengthen families, maintain children in the community, identify at-risk youth and intervene as early as possible.

State law mandates the Comprehensive Services Act for Youth and Families (CSA). The populations served, as defined by state statute, are divided into "mandated" and "non-mandated" categories. The mandated category includes youth in imminent danger of out-of-home placement, youth in foster care, and youth whose special education needs cannot be provided within the public schools. The state requires localities to fund mandated services and guarantees a reimbursement based on a complex funding formula. For Arlington, the required local share is approximately 46 percent of the costs, based on the revised funding formula. The "non-mandated" category includes all other youth whose behaviors or family situations put them at-risk of out-of-home placements, especially youth involved with the Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court. Services include family counseling, case management, foster care, special education and a variety of support services. Separate program descriptions are included in Family Services Teams (Child Protective Services, Foster Care and Adoption) and the Arlington Public Schools' budget.

• CSA Administration provides interagency coordination for CSA implementation, through organization and facilitation of Community Assessment Teams; utilization management and review of active cases; monitoring of regulatory and policy changes; education of agency case management staff; support of the Community Policy and Management Team; facilitation of the CSA Management Team; and assessment of community services and development of services missing from the continuum of care.

• The Alternatives to Residential Treatment (ART) Program prevents the placement of youths in expensive residential facilities and transitions youths back into the community who had been placed in residential care by ensuring that intensive community-based, family-focused services are provided for youths and their families.

• The Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court serves children whose severe emotional and or behavioral problems place them at-risk of more serious placement by the Courts; services funded include family counseling, case management, and, as a last resort, placement in a residential facility.

SIGNIFICANT BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS:

• Increase in personnel costs is due to normal step increases and the reclassification of a position.

• Non-personnel costs decrease due to decreased projections for telephone charges.

• The FTE count does not change from FY 2005 to FY 2006, but reflects the net effect of reallocating a 1.0 FTE position from Divisional Management to CSA for the ART Program, and reallocating a 1.0 FTE position from CSA to the Community Based Mental Health and Mental Retardation/Developmental Disabilities Services (Community Based Services) Team.

PERFORMANCE MEASURES:

CSA Administration

• Reduced compliance rate with Utilization Management policies is related to workload demands of staff in critical cases.

• Percentage of Medicaid coverage is low due to increased frequency in denial of claims submitted by one service provider.

• Increased average expenditures are attributable to both increased demand for residential services and continual rising cost of this level of care.

• Customer measures described above started in FY 2004.

• Changes in organizational structure and procedures will ensure improved collection methods of co-payment beginning in the latter half of FY 2005.

Alternatives to Residential Treatment (ART)

• Decrease in total youth served in FY 2004 is due to a long-term staff vacancy and diminished staffing level in ART to cover increased demand in foster care, a mandated service.

• Cost avoidance is the projected amount of residential cost if the youth had not remained in the community.

• Customer measures described above were implemented in FY 2004.

Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court