Specialization of Children’s Community Residence for Transition Age Youth with or at Risk of Child Welfare Involvement

Transition age youth with or at risk of child welfare involvement and on an independent living trajectory often have longer lengths of stay in restrictive settings. When young people are inadequately prepared with knowledge, resources, and skills, they may not meet eligibility criteria for adult programs or be successful in an adult program. Transition age youth with child welfare involvement, including those with and co-occurring mental health and autism or intellectual disability diagnoses, are at particular risk for challenges in the transition to adulthood.
Children’s Community Residences (CCRs) are 8 bed short term (4-6 months) home-like therapeutic programs for youth with serious emotional disturbance due to a mental health diagnosis. CCRs offer a rehabilitative treatment setting which provides 24/7 supervision, structure, care coordination, skill building, and behavior support. The intent of a CCR is to assist youth in achieving optimal level of functioning so that they can successfully transition to less restrictive settings to continue their recovery journey.
CCRs specializing in supporting transition age youth can benefit from resources to provide the specialized supports and services required to ensure a young person’s successful transition from the child-serving systems of care to the adult systems of care. The goal of this initiative is to strengthen the CCR’s staffing, training, and service delivery expectations to serve transition age youth, particularly those at risk of or with child welfare involvement.
OMH is seeking to award up to $275,000 to CCR programs in each OMH region to specialize in transition age youth with or at risk of child welfare involvement to those providers currently operating OMH licensed CCRs statewide. Using awarded funds, these CCRs will enhance their ability to provide the rehabilitative services to equip transition age youth with the skills and the support needed to thrive in an independent living setting and adult service system. Each program must have a plan to promote their ability to serve youth involved or at risk of involvement with child welfare (although participants do not need to meet these criteria to be eligible for service provision in an awarded CCR). Programs may choose to further specialize their program to serve CCR eligible transition age youth with a primary designated mental health diagnosis and co-occurring autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or intellectual disability diagnosis.
This project will fund additional staffing and/or specialized staff positions, services, staff training, and recipient service dollars.
Notice: Notification of intent to apply should be made to the Local Governmental Unit (county director of community services) for each county to be served under the program application, as defined in Section 41 of the New York State Mental Hygiene Law.

The full RFP can be found at: https://omh.ny.gov/omhweb/rfp/

All applicants must be Prequalified by the due date/time of the RFP.

All applications/proposals must be submitted through the Statewide Financial System.