About the Child, Adolescent, and Family Branch (CAFB)

Initiatives:

• Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services Program for Children and Their Families
• Caring for Every Child's Mental Health Campaign
• Statewide Family Network Grant Program
• Circles of Care
• Partnerships for Youth Transition

What does the CAFB do?

The Child, Adolescent, and Family Branch of the Federal Center for Mental Health Services promotes and ensures that the mental health needs of children and their families are addressed by a "community-based system of care."

How are 'systems of care' developed?

Systems of care are developed on the premise that the mental health needs of children, adolescents, and their families can be met within their home, school, and community environments. These systems are also developed around the principles of being child-centered, family-driven, strength-based, and culturally competent and involving interagency collaboration. The Child, Adolescent, and Family Branch embraces and promotes these core principles of systems of care.

Where is CAFB located?

Child, Adolescent and Family Branch
Division of Service System Improvement
Center for Mental Health Services
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
5600 Fishers Lane, Room 11C-16
Rockville, MD 20857
Phone: 301-443-1333; Fax: 301-443-3693

Who is on the CAFB staff?

• Gary M. Blau, Ph.D., Branch Chief; gblau@samhsa.gov
• Diane Sondheimer, Deputy Branch Chief; dsondhei@samhsa.gov
• Rolando Santiago, Program Director for Evaluation; rsantiag@samhsa.gov
• Lisa Adams, Grants Management Assistant; ladams@samhsa.gov
• Jill Erickson, Program Director, Circles of Care Program; jerickso@samhsa.gov
• Michele Herman, Project Officer; mherman@samhsa.gov
• Leah McGee, Program Assistant; lmcgee@samhsa.gov
• Lisa Rubenstein, Project Officer; lrubens@samhsa.gov
• Hardy Stone, Project Officer; hstone@samhsa.gov
• Susan Stromberg, Project Officer; sstrombe@samhsa.gov
• Elizabeth Sweet, Program Director, Statewide Family Network Program; esweet@samhsa.gov

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Initiatives:

Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services Program for Children and Their Families

The Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services Program for Children and Their Families provides grants to States, communities, territories, Indian tribes, and tribal organizations to improve and expand systems of care programs in their communities. The programs seek to address the needs of an estimated 4.5-6.3 million children with serious emotional disturbances and their families. The program was first authorized in fiscal year 1992 by section 561 of the Public Health Service Act, as amended. The grant program has funded a total of 63 grantees across the country; there are currently 85 grant communities and 31 former grant programs.

The Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services Program for Children and Their Families is based on a philosophy that includes four elements.

1. The mental health service systems are driven by the needs and preferences of the child and family addressed through a strength-based approach;
2. The focus and management of services occur within a multi-agency collaborative environment and are grounded in a strong community base;
3. The services offered, the agencies participating, and the programs generated are responsive to the cultural context and characteristics of the populations served; and
4. Families are lead partners in planning and implementing the system of care. Communities are given flexibility to organize their systems-of-care approach.

Systems of Care communities collaborate with a national multi-site evaluation, are provided training and technical assistance on systems of care principles and processes, and develop social marketing/public education outreach programs.

Grantees participate in an annual 2- to 3-day grant community visit conducted by the national evaluation contractor to assess and monitor the overall progress of systems of care development in their community. Additionally, a Federal review team (including the Federal project officer) conducts a community site visit, usually in years two and four of the grant, to gauge progress toward achieving the goals as set forth in the grant application.

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Caring for Every Child's Mental Health Campaign

Increasing awareness around children's mental health has been one of the core goals of the Caring for Every Child's Mental Health Campaign since its inception in 1994. The core messages, themes, materials, and products initially developed still play a big role in national public education initiatives. Now in its second phase, the expanded Campaign is reaching new audiences and forging partnerships both in the public and private sectors to refine further the national agenda on children's mental health.

The overarching purpose of the Campaign is to stimulate support for a comprehensive systems of care approach to children's mental health services. To accomplish this, the Campaign has set the following primary objectives:

• Enhance grant communities' social marketing/communications capacity;
• Increase awareness of and support for systems of care; and
• Increase awareness and understanding of children's mental health needs.

To achieve the objectives outlined above and to support grant communities in their efforts to promote systems of care, the Campaign has established an advisory group of 10 representatives known as the Campaign Resource Group. They advise the Campaign on programmatic issues such as marketing, materials and message development, training, cultural competence, and evaluation. The CRG consists of ethnically diverse family representatives, communications professionals, and project directors from several grant communities. This group provides the Campaign with community-based representatives to guide the national and local public education/social marketing efforts.

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Statewide Family Network Grant Program

Forty-two Statewide Family Network grantees participate in the development of policies, programs, and quality assurance activities related to the mental health of children and adolescents with a serious emotional disturbance and their families. This grant program is designed to increase the capacity of statewide family network grantees and to strengthen coalitions among family members, policymakers, and service providers. The essence of knowledge application is achieving change with the recognition that family members are the best and most effective change agents. Technical assistance is provided to the grantees through the United Advocates for Children of California.

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Circles of Care

In collaboration with Indian Health Service and the National Institute of Mental Health, seven 3-year grants were awarded in 2001 to plan, design, and assess the feasibility of implementing a culturally appropriate mental health service model for American Indian/Alaska Native children with serious emotional disturbances and their families. This program is intended to support tribes and urban Indian organizations in their efforts to develop service delivery models, which will generate the outcomes selected by American Indians/Alaska Natives for their own children. The program also is intended to support the development of measures and processes that will be useful to tribal and urban Indian organizations in evaluating their service models against the outcomes they have selected.

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Partnerships for Youth Transition

The Office of Special Education, U.S. Department of Education is a contributor to this program. Technical assistance is provided by the University of South Florida, Department of Child and Family Studies through a grant from the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative, Annie E. Casey Foundation. Five 4-year cooperative agreements were awarded in 2003 to plan, design, and implement youth transition programs for children with serious emotional disturbances and their families. Youth with serious emotional disturbances and serious mental illnesses are particularly at high risk during the transition to adulthood. These young people have the highest dropout rate among all youth with a disability, have more confrontations with the juvenile justice system, often fail to live independently-resulting in homelessness-and are more prone to unplanned pregnancy than youth in other disability groups. Often, system-generated plans for transition services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act are weak and not followed effectively, or children's services are often withdrawn abruptly, based on age, not the need for services. In addition, the criteria for service eligibility are inconsistent, and youth may not be eligible for services and supports in another location. Adequate assessment is frequently not conducted.

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KEN95-0016
12/03

Please note that this online publication has been abridged from the printed version.

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