• Access
The extent to which an individual who needs care and services is able to receive them. Access is more than having insurance coverage or the ability to pay for services. It is also determined by the availability of services, acceptability of services, cultural appropriateness, location, hours of operation, transportation needs, and cost.
• Accessible services
Services that are affordable, located nearby, and open during evenings and weekends. Staff is sensitive to and incorporates individual and cultural values. Staff is also sensitive to barriers that may keep a person from getting help. For example, an adolescent may be more willing to attend a support group meeting in a church or club near home than to travel to a mental health center. An accessible service can handle consumer demand without placing people on a long waiting list.
• Accreditation
An official decision made by a recognized organization that a health care plan, network, or other delivery system complies with applicable standards.
• Active Treatment
Active treatment refers to aggressive, consistent implementation of a program of specialized and generic training, treatment and health services. Active treatment does not include services to maintain generally independent consumers who are able to function with little supervision or in the absence of a continuous active treatment program.
• Appropriate services
Designed to meet the specific needs of each individual child and family. For example, one family may need day treatment, while another may need home-based services. Appropriate services for one child and family may not be appropriate for another. Appropriate services usually are provided in the child's community.
• Assessment
A professional review of child and family needs that is done when services are first sought from a caregiver. The assessment of the child includes a review of physical and mental health, intelligence, school performance, family situation, and behavior in the community. The assessment identifies the strengths of the child and family. Together, the caregiver and family decide what kind of treatment and supports, if any, are needed.
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• Behavioral Therapy
As the name implies, behavioral therapy focuses on behavior-changing unwanted behaviors through rewards, reinforcements, and desensitization. Desensitization, or Exposure Therapy, is a process of confronting something that arouses anxiety, discomfort, or fear and overcoming the unwanted responses. Behavioral therapy often involves the cooperation of others, especially family and close friends, to reinforce a desired behavior.
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• Caregiver
An individual who organizes and coordinates services and supports for children with mental health problems and their families. (Alternate terms: service coordinator, advocate, and facilitator.)
• Case management
A service that helps people arrange for appropriate services and supports. A case manager coordinates mental health, social work, educational, health, vocational, transportation, advocacy, respite care, and recreational services, as needed. The case manager makes sure that the changing needs of the child and family are met. (This definition does not apply to manage care.) Managed care definition: A system requiring that a single individual in the provider organization is responsible for arranging and approving all devices needed under the contract embraced by employers, mental health authorities, and insurance companies to ensure that individuals receive appropriate, reasonable health care services.
• Child protective services
Designed to safeguard the child when abuse, neglect, or abandonment is suspected, or when there is no family to take care of the child. Examples of help delivered in the home include financial assistance, vocational training, homemaker services, and daycare. If in-home supports are insufficient, the child may be removed from the home on a temporary or permanent basis. Ideally, the goal is to keep the child with the family whenever possible.
• Children and adolescents at risk for mental health problems
Children are at greater risk for developing mental health problems when certain factors occur in their lives or environments. Factors include physical abuse, emotional abuse or neglect, harmful stress, discrimination, poverty, loss of a loved one, frequent relocation, alcohol and other drug use, trauma, and exposure to violence.
• Clinical Psychologist
A clinical psychologist is a professional with a doctoral degree in psychology who specializes in therapy.
• Comprehensive Functional Assessment
Within 30 days of Admission the Interdisciplinary team produces a comprehensive Functional Assessment to include specific development strengths, individual preferences, and specific functional and adaptive social skills the individual needs to acquire.
• Consumer
Any individual who does or could receive health care or services. Includes other more specialized terms, such as beneficiary, client, customer, eligible member, recipient, or patient.
• Consumer Right Committee
A volunteer group which safeguards the rights of individuals receiving services. The CRC reviews allegations and investigations of Mistreatment, Abuse, Neglect or Exploitation, as well as the use of medications for behavior control, emergency controls, and safety control, rights suspensions and use of restrictive procedures.
• Continuum of care
A term that implies a progression of services that a child moves through, usually one service at a time. More recently, it has come to mean comprehensive services.
• Coordinated services
Child-serving organizations talk with the family and agree upon a plan of care that meets the child's needs. These organizations can include mental health, education, juvenile justice, and child welfare. Case management is necessary to coordinate services.
• Crisis residential treatment services
Short-term, round-the-clock help provided in a nonhospital setting during a crisis. For example, when a child becomes aggressive and uncontrollable, despite in-home supports, a parent can temporarily place the child in a crisis residential treatment service. The purposes of this care are to avoid inpatient hospitalization, help stabilize the child, and determine the next appropriate step.
• Cultural competence
Help that is sensitive and responsive to cultural differences. Caregivers are aware of the impact of culture and possess skills to help provide services that respond appropriately to a person's unique cultural differences, including race and ethnicity, national origin, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, or physical disability. They also adapt their skills to fit a family's values and customs.
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• DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition)
An official manual of mental health problems developed by the American Psychiatric Association. Psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and other health and mental health care providers use this reference book to understand and diagnose mental health problems. Insurance companies and health care providers also use the terms and explanations in this book when discussing mental health problems.
• Day treatment
Day treatment includes special education, counseling, parent training, vocational training, skill building, crisis intervention, and recreational therapy. It lasts at least 4 hours a day. Day treatment programs work in conjunction with mental health, recreation, and education organizations and may even be provided by them.
• Diagnostic Evaluation
The aims of a general psychiatric evaluation are 1) to establish a psychiatric diagnosis, 2) to collect data sufficient to permit a case formulation, and 3) to develop an initial treatment plan, with particular consideration of any immediate interventions that may be needed to ensure the patient's safety, or, if the evaluation is a reassessment of a patient in long-term treatment, to revise the plan of treatment in accord with new perspectives gained from the evaluation.
• Discharge
A discharge is the formal termination of service, generally when treatment has been completed or through administrative authority.
• Dually Diagnosed
A person who has two DSM-IV diagnosis that are present at the same time.
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• Early intervention
A process used to recognize warning signs for mental health problems and to take early action against factors that put individuals at risk. Early intervention can help children get better in less time and can prevent problems from becoming worse.
• Emergency
A planned program to provide psychiatric care in emergency situations with staff specifically assigned for this purpose. Includes crisis intervention, which enables the individual, family members and friends to cope with the emergency while maintaining the individual's status as a functioning community member to the greatest extent possible.
• Emergency and crisis services
A group of services that is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to help during a mental health emergency. Examples include telephone crisis hotlines, suicide hotlines, crisis counseling, crisis residential treatment services, crisis outreach teams, and crisis respite care.
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• Family Therapy-
This form of therapy involves the entire family or family unit in order to help with issues that affect the transition of the consumer back into the living unit.
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• Guardian
A person appointed by the courts to be a substitute decision maker for person receiving services deemed to be incompetent of making informed decision or themselves. The power of the guardian is determined by a judge and may be limited to specific aspects of the person’s life. Parents are legal guardians of their children until the age of 18: after that age, parents have no legal control unless they have been declared guardian by a court. Guardianship may not be passed to another individual without guardian approval.
• Group Therapy
This form of therapy involves groups of usually 4 to 12 people who have similar problems and who meet regularly with a therapist.
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• HIPAA
Federal Law that governs confidentiality of consumer records.
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• ICF-MR
An ICF serving only or mainly mentally retarded residents, which provides a level of medical or custodial care beyond that required in supported living or group home placement, but less than a full time intensive medical or custodial need. Also providing active treatment for said residents and certified under the federal statue 42 CRF 435 and 442.
• Individualized services
Services designed to meet the unique needs of each child and family. Services are individualized when the caregivers pay attention to the needs and strengths, ages, and stages of development of the child/adult and individual family members.
• Individual Therapy
Therapy tailored for a patient/client that is administered one-on-one.
• Informed Consent
A decision based on Knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages and implication of choosing a course of action.
• Inpatient hospitalization
Mental health treatment provided in a hospital setting 24 hours a day. Inpatient hospitalization provides: (1) short-term treatment in cases where a child is in crisis and possibly a danger to his/herself or others, and (2) diagnosis and treatment when the patient cannot be evaluated or treated appropriately in an outpatient setting.
• Intake/ Screening
Services designed to briefly assess the type and degree of a client's/patient's mental health condition to determine whether services are needed and to link him/her to the most appropriate and available service. Services may include interviews, psychological testing, physical examinations including speech/hearing, and laboratory studies.
• Interdisciplinary team
A group of professionals, paraprofessionals and non professionals including the person and his/her guardian/family who possess the knowledge, skills and expertise necessary to accurately identify the array of the individuals needs and design appropriate services in specialized programs responsive to those needs.
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• Managed Care
An organized system for delivering comprehensive mental health services that allows the managed care entity to determine what services will be provided to an individual in return for a prearranged financial payment. Generally, managed care controls health care costs and discourages unnecessary hospitalization and overuse of specialists, and the health plan operates under contract to a payer.
• Mental health
How a person thinks, feels, and acts when faced with life's situations. Mental health is how people look at themselves, their lives, and the other people in their lives; evaluate their challenges and problems; and explore choices. This includes handling stress, relating to other people, and making decisions.
• Mental health problems
Mental health problems are real. They affect one's thoughts, body, feelings, and behavior. Mental health problems are not just a passing phase. They can be severe, seriously interfere with a person's life, and even cause a person to become disabled. Mental health problems include depression, bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness), attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, schizophrenia, and conduct disorder.
• Mental disorders
Another term used for mental health problems..
• Mental illnesses
This term is usually used to refer to severe mental health problems in adults.
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• Normalization
Refers to make the commonly pattern and conditions of every day life available to people with developmental disabilities.
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• Person Centered Plan
A treatment plan especially designed for each child and family, based on individual strengths and needs. The caregiver(s) develop(s) the plan with input from the family. The plan establishes goals and details appropriate treatment and services to meet the special needs of the child and family.
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• Qualified Mental Retardation Professional
An employee of a facility for the developmentally disabled or a nursing home who has specialized training in mental retardation or at least one year of experience in treating or working with mentally retarded persons and who has at least a bachelor’s degree in human service field.
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• Residential Services
Services provided over a 24-hour period or any portion of the day which a patient resided, on an on-going basis, in a State facility or other facility and received treatment.
Level IV Rules and Regulations
Level III Rules and Regulations
ICF/MR Rules and Regulations
• Residential treatment centers
Facilities that provide treatment 24 hours a day and can usually serve more than 12 young people at a time. Children with serious emotional disturbances receive constant supervision and care. Treatment may include individual, group, and family therapy; behavior therapy; special education; recreation therapy; and medical services. Residential treatment is usually more long-term than inpatient hospitalization. Centers are also known as therapeutic group homes.
• Respite Residential Services
Provision of periodic relief to the usual family members and friends who care for the clients/patients.
• Respite care
A service that provides a break for parents who have a child with a serious emotional disturbance. Trained parents or counselors take care of the child for a brief period of time to give families relief from the strain of caring for the child. This type of care can be provided in the home or in another location. Some parents may need this help every week.
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• Serious emotional disturbances
Diagnosable disorders in children and adolescents that severely disrupt their daily functioning in the home, school, or community. Serious emotional disturbances affect one in 10 young people. These disorders include depression, attention-deficit/hyperactivity, anxiety disorders, conduct disorder, and eating disorders. Pursuant to section 1912(c) of the Public Health Service Act "children with a serious emotional disturbance" are persons: (1) from birth up to age 18 and (2) who currently have, or at any time during the last year, had a diagnosable mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder of sufficient duration to meet diagnostic criteria specified within DSM-III-R. Federal Register Volume 58 No. 96 published Thursday May 20, 1993 pages 29422 through 29425.
• Serious Mental Illness
Pursuant to section 1912(c) of the Public Health Service Act, adults with serious mental illness SMI are persons: (1) age 18 and over and (2) who currently have, or at any time during the past year had a diagnosable mental behavioral or emotional disorder of sufficient duration to meet diagnostic criteria specified within DSM-IV or their ICD-9-CM equivalent (and subsequent revisions) with the exception of DSM-IV "V" codes, substance use disorders, and developmental disorders, which are excluded, unless they co-occur with another diagnosable serious mental illness. (3) That has resulted in functional impairment, which substantially interferes with or limits one or more major life activities. Federal Register Volume 58 No. 96 published Thursday May 20, 1993 pages 29422 through 29425.
• Service
A type of support or clinical intervention designed to address the specific mental health needs of a child and his or her family. A service could be provided only one time or repeated over a course of time, as determined by the child, family, and service provider.
• SSDI
Social Security Disability Insurance
• SSI
Supplemental Security Income, a federal government income support program for aged, blind or disabled persons.
• System of Care
A system of care is a method of addressing children's mental health needs. It is 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.
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• Therapeutic Foster Care
A service which provides treatment for troubled children within private homes of trained families. The approach combines the normalizing influence of family-based care with specialized treatment interventions, thereby creating a therapeutic environment in the context of a nurturing family home.
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