Children and Families

The WI Statewide Transition Initiative receives guidance from a Youth Advisory Board (YAB). The materials contained here were developed to teach workers to help support meaningful work by the Board via youth leadership training and development. The YAB description provides the details and goals of the program. The facilitators guide and presentation structured the training, and the youth activities and programming resource support implementation.

The University of Delaware’s Center for Disabilities Studies created a web-based curriculum to provide helpful information on social, emotional and behavioral health problems in youth for parents/caregivers and also for the children/youth. The program can be used in individual family sessions, multifamily groups or in a school setting. The website offers a host of practical guides and handouts for families, therapist topics and session guides.

In January 2008, a small group of experts met to discuss challenges and recent changes to the early and periodic screening, diagnosis, and treatment (EPSDT) Medicaid benefit. Their discussion focused on helping states maximize children’s access to EPSDT care. They also covered ways to engage with primary care providers and to improve care coordination and quality measurement.

NASHP produced this report and webinar to help states provide Medicaid and SCHIP coverage to youth involved with or exiting foster care and juvenile justice systems. The report focuses on simplifying enrollment, enhancing retention through transitions, and integrating services with partners. The webinar slides present the report findings in brief and highlight programs in New Mexico and Washington that focus on the juvenile justice system and youths released from incarceration.

The authors offer recommendations for providing successful career preparation support to youth with mental health needs. They studied five successful programs to identify common design features that address frequently identified challenges in transitioning to an independent adulthood. They also offer analysis of systems level factors affecting program design and sustainability, in addition to recommendations for staff and policymakers.

This report is about older youth that are involved in the foster care system and have disabilities and the challenges and outcomes they experience in the areas of education, employment, and other indicators of well-being. The goal is to inform and advise state and federal policymakers in improving these outcomes through better services coordination, systems accountability, leadership development, and capacity building, focusing especially on the transition to adulthood.

The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured supported this focus group project of adults with disabilities in 4 states, who are enrolled in Medicaid Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Services programs. This research was undertaken to learn about Medicaid enrollees’ experiences in the program and their opinions about key features of the program including recruitment issues and degree of responsibility over services. Ways to improve upon the programs were also identified.

Consumer direction of personal assistance services (CD-PAS) is one model of service delivery that gives Medicaid beneficiaries varying degrees of control over hiring, scheduling, training, and paying personal care attendants. Program administrators, experienced with the programmatic features of CD-PAS in their state, were interviewed. Eligibility criteria, participant support services, and method of financial management used by Medicaid beneficiaries to pay direct care workers are discussed.

The Compendium contains basic information about each of the Real Choice Systems Change Grantees receiving awards in FY 2004. It includes information for the Family-to-Family and Systems Transformation Grantees who received awards in FY 2005 and FY 2006 plus the Person-Centered Planning Implementation awards in FY 2007. It is divided into sections corresponding to the different types of grants and year of award; the report helps Grantees identify others with similar goals and activities.

Youth Employment Solutions – Project YES! – is a systems change project funded by the Nebraska Health and Human Services System through Nebraska’s Medicaid Infrastructure Grant. The purpose of Project YES! is to increase the competitive employment of Nebraska’s SSI, SSDI, and CDB eligible youth in transition. A summary of the purpose of Project YES! is included, and the Community Team Summary from 2006 is attached.