Children's Mental Health Services

Medication treatment and monitoring services typically include the prescription of psychoactive medications by a physician (e.g., psychiatrist) that are designed to alleviate symptoms and promote psychological growth. Treatment includes periodic assessment and monitoring of the child's reaction(s) to the drugs(s).

Outpatient therapy services include individual, family, and group therapy in which psychotherapy and related services are provided by a licensed mental health professional.

Community Based Psychiatric Rehabilitation and Support (CBPRS) services are adaptive skill building and integration services provided in person for a youth in home, school or community settings in order to help the youth maintain participation in those settings. The focus of the services is to improve or restore the youth's functioning in identified areas of impairment to prevent or minimize the need for more restrictive levels of care. CBPRS may only be provided when a youth is receiving other mental health services.

Targeted Case Management (TCM) services are provided to assist youth and families in gaining access to needed medical, social, educational and other services. Case management services include assessment, determination of need, development and periodic revision of a specific care plan, referral and related activities, and monitoring and follow-up activities.

Intensive outpatient therapy services provide a minimum of six hours of weekly structured intensive mental health care to youth with serious emotional disturbance (SED) while allowing youth to safely remain in school, in the home, and in their community. Core services may include a combination of the following: individual, family, and group therapy, CBPRS, crisis services, and care coordination.

 

Home Support Services are in-home therapeutic and family support services for youth who require more intensive therapeutic interventions than are available through other outpatient services. Services are focused on the reduction of symptoms and behaviors that interfere with the youth’s ability to function in the family and facilitation of the development of skills needed by the youth and family to prevent or minimize the need for more restrictive levels of care.

Therapeutic Foster Care Services are in-home therapeutic and family support services for youth living in a therapeutic foster home environment, for youth unable to live with their biological or adoptive parents, in kinship care, or in regular foster care. These youth require more intensive therapeutic interventions than are available through other outpatient services. Services focus on skill building and integration for adaptive functioning to minimize need for more restrictive levels of care and to support permanency or return to the legal guardian.

Comprehensive School and Community Treatment is a comprehensive planned course of community mental health outpatient treatment that includes therapeutic interventions and supportive services provided in a public school-based environment in office and treatment space provided by the school. Services are focused on improving the youth's functional level by facilitating the development of skills related to exhibiting appropriate behaviors in the school and community settings.

Youth Day Treatment services are a set of mental health services provided in a specialized classroom setting (not a regular classroom or school setting) and integrated with educational services provided through full collaboration with a school district. The services are focused on building skills for adaptive school and community functioning and reducing symptoms and behaviors that interfere with a youth's ability to participate in their education at a public school, to minimize need for more restrictive levels of care and to support return to a public school setting as soon as possible.

Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) is a structured day program provided by a hospital under the direction of a physician with frequent nursing and medical supervision. Partial hospitalization programs services are provided within either an acute level program or sub-acute level program. Treatment is intensive and is provided in a supervised environment by a multi-disciplinary team of qualified professionals. This service does not include 24-hour supervision.

Therapeutic Group Home (TGH) is a community-based treatment alternative provided in a structured group home environment. TGH is appropriate for youth requiring specific therapeutic treatment services and social supports which require higher intensity of specific therapeutic services and social supports than are available through traditional outpatient services and exceed the capabilities of support systems for the youth.

Extraordinary needs aide services are additional one-to-one, face-to-face, intensive short-term behavior management and stabilization services provided in the TGH by TGH staff.

Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facilities provide interventions directed at addressing and reducing the specific impairments that led to the admission and at providing a degree of stabilization that permits safe return to the home environment and/or community-based services. A PRTF is a secure residential facility that typically serves 10 or more children and youth and provides 24-hour staff and psychiatrist supervision, and may include individual therapy, group therapy, family therapy, behavior modification, skills development, education, and recreational services.

Acute care psychiatric hospitals are psychiatric facilities that are devoted to the provision of inpatient psychiatric care for persons under the age of 21 for observation, evaluation, and/or treatment. Services are medically oriented and include 24-hour supervision; services may be used for short-term treatment and crisis stabilization. A youth might be admitted to an acute hospital if s/he is considered dangerous to self or others.