InvisALERT Solutions – ObservSMART

Archive for the ‘Child / Adolescent Support’ Category

Community Capacity: Can We Deliver Better Treatment for Children and Families?

On October 15, 2011, the Behavioral Health Subcommittee of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s Medicaid Redesign Team (MRT) gave its final report. For the adult behavioral health system, the report recommended an unprecedented investment into the housing needs of individuals with mental health and...

The Step-Up Intervention Program: A Positive Youth Development Approach to Support Youth Experiencing Housing Instability and Homelessness

Housing instability and homelessness can be defined by frequent moves, couch-surfing, eviction, living in severely overcrowded housing, and living in housing that is not stable (Cutts, Meyers, Black, Casey, Chilton, Cook, & Rose-Jacobs, 2011). Housing instability and homelessness create...

Animal Assisted Therapy for Vulnerable Youth

For almost two decades, North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center has been utilizing Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT) in outpatient mental health work with youths and their families, working in partnership with local canine and equine organizations. An adjunct to traditional therapy, AAT relies...

Innovation and Efficacy Modeled at ANDRUS: Meeting a Vulnerable Population Using a Sensory and Body Regulation Approach

Meeting a Vulnerable Population Where They are At Some children experience mental and behavioral difficulties that make their daily life a challenge. They struggle to regulate their emotions and cope with a world that isn’t always receptive to their reactive behavioral outbursts. At risk...

Transforming NJ’s System of Care Through Collaborative Efforts

A system of care is a big picture approach to how, when, and where services and supports are offered. The System of Care approach to service delivery for children began in the 1990s as communities were looking for ways to improve the well-being of children with serious emotional and behavioral...

Re-Visioning Residential Treatment Facilities in a Managed Care World

It wasn’t long ago that the only options available for intensive treatment of children and youth with severe emotional and behavioral problems were inpatient hospitals or residential care. Before the creation and expansion of community-based mental health services, some children spent many months...

The NYSPA Report: Transforming Systems of Care for Children

Children’s mental health needs are widespread and treatment is often limited and inadequate. Epidemiologic studies report that 20% of children and adolescents have a psychiatric disorder, and 10% have severe impairment. This translates to 1 million children and adolescents in New York State with...

Improving Children’s Health by Focusing on Value

New York State is well down the path to instituting significant changes in how the State pays for health care for low-income and disabled individuals, many of them children. Like many other states, New York is testing new payment methodologies in an effort to achieve positive changes in how health...

Youth in Transition

This article is the third in a quarterly series giving voice to the perspectives of individuals with lived experiences as they share their opinions on a particular topic. The young authors of this column came together as a focus group of peers to discuss their experiences and collaborate on this...

Supporting Youths in Their Recovery Journey to Adulthood

The New York State children’s behavioral health community is in the last stages of redesigning the children’s behavioral health Medicaid benefits. Once approved by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS), the new benefits will represent the most significant expansion of children’s...