SearchThe Assembly Human Services Committee and the Assembly Select Committee on Foster Care held a joint informational hearing on October 23, 2018 to learn more about addressing the behavioral health needs of children in the foster care system and mental health services for youth in foster care. In 2017 the foster care system in California had 82, 665 children in it and data suggests that nearly half of the kids in foster care have a learning or developmental disability. The hearing was a good opportunity to learn more about the Continuum of Care Reform that California’s foster care system has undergone in the past few years. The CCR is a broad and significant series of changes to the system that aims to ensure every child has the opportunity to live in a safe, loving and permanent family home where they can receive the individualized services and supports they need.
Among the services so desperately needed are specialty mental health services that cover a wide range of therapy, rehabilitation, crisis intervention and stabilization, medication support, psychiatric health facility services and much more. In addition, intensive case management coordination, intensive home-based services and targeted case management are essential to successful placements. The key goal of CCR is to improve integration of foster care and mental health care. Some of the key reforms include; child and family teaming, functional assessment of needs, short-term residential therapeutic programs, foster family agency requirements and intensive services foster care.
In the last couple of years (and likely much longer) foster care agencies have reported an increase in challenges recruiting foster families and some of the reasons cited had to do with feeling like they were not getting the services needed to ensure the individualized needs were met. Children with intellectual and developmental disabilities, in particular kids with complex medical or behavioral needs, often have significant, highly specialized and individual needs which can make finding a good fit extremely challenging. Recognizing that change takes time and a lot of hard work I am hopeful that changes to the foster care system, integration with mental health services and implementation of CCR will improve outcomes for all children in the foster care system. To learn more about the CCR and resources visit:
http://www.cdss.ca.gov/inforesources/Continuum-of-Care-Reform
Teresa Anderson, Policy Director, The Arc & UCP Collaboration