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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...
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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...
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Progress and Challenges in Accessing Treatment for People with Autism
Debora Thivierge, BCaBA, CBAA, attended her son’s high school graduation last spring, and looked on with pride as he started college this fall. This rite of passage was not something doctors who diagnosed her son with autism 16 years ago would have encouraged her to strive for. It’s a sign of...
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NYS Office of Mental Health Announces “1,700 Too Many” Statewide Suicide Prevention Plan
The New York State Office of Mental Health today announced the release of an extensive, multifaceted plan for suicide prevention, aimed at reducing New York State’s suicide rate. To guide suicide prevention statewide, 1,700 Too Many: New York State’s Suicide Prevention Plan will empower...
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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...
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SIMHS SafeTY.net Early Intervention Program Fills Gaps in Services for Staten Island Youth Battling Trauma-Related Substance Use/Abuse
For more than a decade, Staten Island has been harboring a shameful secret that is only recently coming to light. Our Island outranks each borough, as well as the whole of New York City and State, in the rate of adolescent drug and alcohol abuse, including binge drinking and use of prescription...
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Partnerships Provide Effective Alternatives to Unnecessary Inpatient Care for Children and Youth
There is a high personal, psychosocial and economic toll for children and youth who experience mental, emotional and behavioral disorders. These challenges also impact their families and the communities in which they live, study, and grow up. Research suggests that in any given year, between 14 and...
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It Takes a Village
When we hear the phrase “It takes a village to raise a child,” we think of the African apologue, or maybe Hillary Clinton’s book about larger societal responsibilities. But in the children’s behavioral health system, it is also true. Throughout the history of this system, there has been a...
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Helping Kids Make Real Progress: A Systems Approach
There is a set of givens supported by years of research and the evolution of Children’s Systems of Care that informs the development of effective care for children with intellectual and behavioral challenges: (A) The earlier services begin the better; (B) Services need to be tailored to the...
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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...
