Shiawassee County Community Mental Health Authority Clinical & Support Services to Children & Families

Family

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Clinical & Support Services to Children & Families

Child/Family Therapy

Treatment is provided from a family systems perspective using a short term, strengths-based therapy model. This means that the focus of counseling is on the present day concerns that families identify and the therapist looks to the strengths each family possesses for the resources to help families make the changes they desire.

Psychiatric Services

Psychiatric assessment and medication monitoring is provided for consumers who receive services for Developmental Disabilities as well as services for Mental Illness. The psychiatrist's role is to assess the need for, prescribe and monitor psychotropic medications.

Behavioral Services

A Behavioral Specialist provides behavioral consultation and services, as part of a treatment team, to children and their families served by SCCMHA. The Behavioral Services are actively designed to reduce maladaptive behaviors, to maximize behavioral self-control, or to restore normalized psychological functioning, reality orientation, and emotional adjustment, thus enabling the individual to function more appropriately in interpersonal and social relationships.

Home Based Services

Home Based Services are available for infants and older children or teens and their families when a more intensive level of care is required. The Home Based Programs share a common philosophy and pattern of delivering services. Interventions identified and used build on the strengths each individual and family possess.

Paraprofessional Services

Home based paraprofessionals are available to children who have a severe emotional disturbance and are enrolled in home based services. The home based paraprofessional acts as an adjunct to, and assists home based services professional staff with implementation of behavioral goals and interventions. These interventions are related to positive skill development, development of age appropriate social behaviors and preserving the health and safety of the individual in order that he/she may continue residing in the family home.

Respite

Respite is provided to assist in maintaining a goal of living in a natural community home, and temporarily relieves the unpaid primary caregiver. It is a part of the array of services available to support families in raising children with a serious emotional disturbance (SED) and/or developmental disability.

Services for Children with Developmental Disabilities

The Children's Waiver, Habilitation Waiver and the Family Support Subsidy are available for children with developmental disabilities and their families when the criteria established by the Michigan Department of Community Health are met. The Waivers provide funding for services to children with severe developmental disabilities and medical fragility. The goal of the waiver is to assist families in caring for children with severe physical and developmental disabilities in their home and community.

The Family Support Subsidy also has the goal of helping families care for a child with a developmental disability by providing financial resources for respite care and/or other child and family needs.

Community Living Supports

Children's Community Living Support services are available to a child with a developmental disability. These services assist in preserving the health and safety of the individual that he/she may reside or be supported in the most integrated, independent community setting. A paraprofessional is needed to assist with the implementation of a behavioral intervention plan or behavioral goals and interventions that are related to positive skill development, development of appropriate social behaviors and preserving the health and safety of the individual that he/she may continue residing in the family home.

Case Management

Child Care Expulsion Prevention (CCEP) project creates, strengthens, and formalizes links between child care settings, the families they serve and community resources. By formalizing the system of communication between the numerous parties involved with child care/preschool expulsion, Shiawassee Collaborative Foundations for Success increases effectiveness and efficiency of service delivery. This project supports and strengthens the early development of young children that begin to experience emotional, behavioral or developmental difficulties while in early child care settings. It offers additional support and resources to early child care programs caring for children ages 0 to 5 years old who exhibit disruptive or developmental at-risk behaviors. It also increases early mental health service availability and accessibility to young children, their parents and child care settings. The educational component emphasizes early identification and prevention efforts and increase community knowledge and skill levels in understanding young children with challenging behaviors. Early identification means early intervention. The benefits of early intervention and more importantly prevention have advantages that the community as a whole can appreciate.