Integrated Service System Executive Planning Committee

Integrated Service System Executive Planning Committee for Region 5

The Integrated Service System Executive Planning Committee for Region 5 is tasked with formulating the regional plan to implement the provisions of Public Act 13-178. Below is information the group has found helpful in providing guidance and clarification of its mission and role. The visual below illustrates the committee’s current vision.

For more information about this committee please call our office at 475-235-2184.

Information the group has found helpful in providing guidance and clarification of its mission and role

About Public Act 13-178

“The 2013 legislative session ended with the General Assembly passing Public Act 13-178, which directed the Department of Children and Families (DCF) to produce a children’s behavioral health plan for the state of Connecticut by October 2014. The Act required the plan to be comprehensive and integrated and meet the behavioral and mental health needs of all children in the state and to prevent or reduce the long-term negative impact for children of mental, emotional, and behavioral health issues.” taken from: plan4children.org

Key Areas of Focus

Better coordination of services for all levels of need
Returning children and youth who reside in institutional settings to healthy and safe lives with their families and natural supports in their community and neighborhoods
Maintaining children and youth at imminent risk of out-of-home placements with their families and community.
Family-driven and youth-guided with the strengths and needs of the child and family determining the types and mix of services and support provided
Community-based, with the locus of services as well as system management resting within a supportive, adaptive infrastructure of structures, processes and relationships at the community level
Culturally and linguistically competent, with agencies, programs and services that reflect the cultural, racial, ethnic and linguistic differences of the populations they service to facilitate access to and utilization of appropriate services and supports and to eliminate disparities in care
Trauma informed, with the recognition that unmitigated exposure to adverse childhood experiences including violence, physical or sexual abuse and other traumatic events can cause serious and chronic health and behavioral health problems and is associated with increased involvement with the criminal justice and child welfare systems.

Vision/Mission

(Core Values and Guiding Principles)

Develop one integrated, strengths-based, accessible, and accountable system of community-based behavioral healthcare for all families with children and youth with serious emotional disturbance. Such a system will be designed to assist families and children with behavioral health needs to access a high quality system of care that will help their children thrive and be successfully supported within their communities. Services and supports provided are to be culturally competent and appropriate, and family and individually driven by the needs and preferences of the family and child being served. These efforts are to be connected and adjunctive to the larger System of Care.

A partnership of families, system of care collaborative(s), behavioral health and community providers, advocates, DCF (Department of Children and Families,) DSS (Department of Social Services,) DMHAS (Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services,) DDS (department of Developmental Services,) CSSD (Court Support Services Division,) schools, and juvenile justice leadership will use national system of care wrap around practices and an integrated organizational structure to provide a system of services that is responsive, easy to navigate for families and of the highest effectiveness.