Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 3, 2005

CONTACT: Jana Scoville (404) 508-7875

DeKalb Public Agencies Come Together to Improve Mental Health Services for Children

DECATUR, Georgia - Parenting children in today's world is a challenging endeavor under the best of circumstances. Imagine the complexity of caring for a child with mental health issues who receives services from multiple agencies. The child could be assigned goals through an Individualized Education Plan through school, an individualized service plan through a mental health provider, a probation plan and a family plan. Putting together these pieces could be a frightening puzzle for a family to solve. A child with multiple needs and his family needs the counsel of a trained team who can coordinate a comprehensive plan for them. In the past, the idea of such a team was unheard of because traditionally agencies have worked independently.

Today, a major shift is slowly taking place across the country from agencies having a service driven mindset to a family driven system of care. This philosophy is a multidisciplinary, community-based approach in which the family directs a multi-agency team that builds plans to meet needs identified by the family. For the past 10 years, the federal government has funded system of care sites across the country. Significant national evaluation has provided knowledge of what works and what doesn't work for new communities implementing the philosophy.

To develop a DeKalb County System of Care, numerous representatives of public agencies began meeting in December 2002 and now meet monthly. The mission is to establish and manage a coordinated network of mental health, substance abuse and other support services to meet the changing emotional needs of children and adolescents and their families.

This Children's Policy Council is comprised of representatives from the Juvenile Court of DeKalb County; DeKalb County Department of Family and Children Services; DeKalb Community Service Board; Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice; Georgia Department of Human Resources' Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Addictive Diseases; DeKalb County School System; City Schools of Decatur; an adult member of a family served by the partnership; a youth served by the partnership and others identified by the partnership. The director of the Children's Policy Council is Cheri Villines, who is also a staff member of the DeKalb Community Service Board (CSB), a public agency, corporation and instrumentality of the State of Georgia created to provide mental health, developmental disabilities and addictive diseases services.

In May 2005, the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners adopted a resolution authorizing county Chief Executive Officer Vernon Jones to submit an application to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for a children's system of care grant. If funded, the grant would award the county about $9.5 million over six years to change the way DeKalb agencies serve children with serious emotional disorders and their families. If funded, the grant would provide ongoing training and mentoring of all child-serving staff through a multi-agency training institute; build infrastructure by creating 10 to 12 new positions in public child-serving agencies; provide a mechanism for families to participate in evaluating services; and establish an online grant library and provide governance of the grant through the interagency Children's Policy Council. Parents and youth have played an integral role in developing the grant request and will be involved in all aspects of program design and evaluation.

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