Introduction to the Children’s Behavioral Health Initiative (CBHI)

The Children’s Behavioral Health Initiative is an interagency initiative of the Commonwealth’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services whose mission is to strengthen, expand and integrate Massachusetts state services into a comprehensive, community-based system of care, to ensure that families and their children with significant behavioral, emotional and mental health needs obtain the services necessary for success in home, school and community. This session will give participants an overview of the CBHI initiative, related services and Medical Necessity Criteria for service authorization.

System of Care Philosophy

A System of Care is “a comprehensive array of mental health and other necessary services which are organized into a coordinated network to meet the multiple and changing needs of children and their families.” This training will provide an overview of System of care Philosophy that encourage maximizing effective Wraparound implementation through nurturing, creating and strengthening formal and informal community processes that support care planning teams in their work.

Wraparound- 4 Phases and the Child and Family Team Meeting

Wraparound is an intensive method of engaging with individuals with complex needs (most typically children, youth, and their families) so that they can live in their homes and communities and realize their hopes and dreams. This session will introduce the participants to the Wraparound philosophy, approach and implementation within the Children’s Behavioral Health Initiative.

This training will provide an overview of the activities involved in the 4 phases of Wraparound:

1) Engagement 2.) Initial Plan Development 3.) Implementation 4.) Transition.

It will briefly cover the process of the child and family team meeting and the standards for facilitating family team meetings using the wraparound approach. This session will assist participants in enhancing team participation, review best practices based on Wraparound principles and philosophies, and ways to better assist families to define functional strengths and needs, and build upon their informal and natural supports. A set of 10 Principles guide the wraparound process. This session will review the 10 Principles and discuss how they are integrated throughout the Team process.

Roles within a Care Planning Team

JRI’s use of the Wraparound Approach prioritizes family voice and youth voice into the treatment planning process. Training staff to listen to these perspectives and communicate throughout service delivery embodies the Wraparound Principles and enhances the JRI service model. This section of the training focuses on approaches to working within a team environment that prioritizes youth and family driven goals in a care planning process.

Peer Support

Peer Mentors in Massachusetts are young adults with lived experience of serious mental health conditions who use their experience to encourage others. Their role and scope of services will be thoroughly reviewed and discussed.

Intro to Child Serving Systems

Throughout JRI, an emphasis on strong partnerships with Child Servicing Systems is a part of our mission and critical to success in community based work. The roles and challenges of our partner Child Serving Agencies will be discussed. The Department of Children and Families’ (DCF) mandate is child protective services. The Department of Mental Health (DMH) services children (and adults) with serious mental health disorders. The Department of Youth Services (DYS) provides support to youth who are criminally involved and typically have court involvement. The Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) was created to facilitate collaboration among the state’s health and human service agencies.

To schedule this training at your organization or for more information, please contact Tara Sagor, CAGS, LMHC: Phone: (781) 559-4900  Email: tsagor@jri.org