Intensive Family Preservation Services

VI. CRITERIA FOR FUNDING

The Advisory Committee of Family Centered Services established criteria that local programs, whether operated under public or private auspices, must meet in order to receive grants for the development and implementation of family preservation services. The Department has worked with the Divisions of Social Services, MH/DS/SAS, and Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to establish a uniform process through which these Divisions will solicit and receive proposals and the grants will be awarded.

A. Each program must:

1. Comply with standards established for the state Intensive Family Preservation Program through legislation and policies of the Department of Health and Human Services.

2. Employ staff who demonstrate the skills and competencies required to provide or supervise intensive family preservation services.

3. Demonstrate that they have appropriate linkages with community agencies to enable them to help clients obtain and use services and resources they need and want, and to make effective referrals for follow-up when IFPS is terminated.

4. Be able to show through submission of an annual operating budget that, with the grant, they have adequate fiscal and other resources to provide a viable IFPS program.

5. Show need for the service in the program’s proposed service area in terms of relevant data which shows on an annual basis the numbers of child protective services reports to DSS and substantiations; number of children place in custody of DSS; number of children placed in DSS foster care or other non-relative placement; number of children admitted to training schools and detention facilities, mental health, developmental disabilities and substance abuse facilities; and other data that indicates trends of increases for out-of-home placement that could be impacted by IFPS.

6. Submit with their application a Memorandum of Agreement with, at a minimum, the county department of social services, the area MH/DD/SAS program and the department of juvenile justice staff serving the proposed service area.

7. Be willing to provide data and participate in state Program evaluation activities as requested by DHHS.

B. Grants may be awarded to stabilize or expand existing locally based public or private IFPS programs or to enable public or private agencies to develop and implement new model IFPS programs.

C. Programs will be expected to make reasonable efforts to maximize funding from other resources.

D. Programs may be eligible to receive a grant for as long as monitoring and evaluation results indicate that their services are effective and the programs are operating in compliance with their funding criteria.

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