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Integrated Family Services
Up one levelThe Integrated Family Services Initiative seeks to bring all agency children, youth and family services together in an integrated and consistent continuum of services for families. The premise being that giving families early support, education and interventions will produce more favorable outcomes at a lower cost then the current practice of waiting until circumstances are bad enough to access high end funding streams which often result in out of home or out of state placement.
Goal
Integrate human service efforts to create a continuum of services for families to choose from and base service on diagnostic and functional needs of the child, youth and family.
Services will be guided by best practices in clinical service, early intervention and family support. The system will monitor outcomes and integrate AHS funding across programs in order to meet these goals effectively.
Integrated Family Services is the overarching “umbrella” that the initiatives and program changes fall under. For example but not limited to: Enhanced Family Treatment (EFT), Children’s Integrated Services (CIS) Prenatal -6, Children’s Health and Support Services (CHASS), Best Practices in Psychotropic Medication Use and Administrative Streamlining.
- Challenges for Change IFS Stakeholder Update - July 2010
- Challenges for Change IFS Stakeholder Update - October 2010
- IFS Enhanced Family Services (EFS)
- EFS is the creation of a flexible intensive to moderate service and support package that increases family capacity, wellness and functioning. This re-design will take current programming and funding identified with the more intensive services and supports and combines them into one program in order to provide early intervention to build skills and maximize families’ strengths, keep families together and reduce use of out of home placements regardless of disability type. Knowledge and skilled response to parent and child mental health and substance abuse issues, trauma, post adoption, impact of significant disabilities on families, positive behavior support strategies, and promotion of wellness in the family system is key in this re-design. The shift to the use of flexible family support and treatment services based on family functioning and needs from a system that has to wait until a child and family reaches a critical point is necessary in order to achieve better outcomes for children and their families. This re-design will be connected to all the general concepts and structure changes outlines in the overarching Integrated Family Services.
- VT Agency of Human Services (AHS) Challenges for Change Integrated Family Services Progress Update - February 2011
- Integrated Family Services Update July 2011
- Final IFS Inventory Report - 1/16/12
