On the Move: Helping Young Adults with Serious Mental Health Needs Transition into Adulthood

This resource provides a summary of grantee programs that focused on youth transition. In September 2002, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), in partnership with the Department of Education, Office on Special Education Programs, awarded approximately $2.5 million per year for four years for the Partnerships for Youth Transition (PYT) initiative. This initiative funded five sites across the nation to develop and implement transition programs for youth with mental and emotional difficulties as they enter adulthood. The PYT community sites worked with youth, families, and other community resources to reach young people with serious mental health needs. They aligned services to fit the needs of youth and offered opportunities to engage young people with caring, responsible adults in planning and preparing for their own futures. The services offered by these PYT sites were youth-guided, supportive of appropriate family involvement, individualized, developmentally appropriate, appealing to the target population and designed to reach the hardest-to-reach young people. View the resource (PDF).

Court Affirms States’ Obligation to Provide Effective Mental Health Services to Foster Children

April 3, 2007--There is good news for children in California’s foster care system. On March 23, 2007, in Katie A. v. Bonta, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the state’s obligation to provide effective mental health services to foster children. The appellate court acknowledged compelling evidence that wraparound services and therapeutic foster care (TFC) are medically necessary for many children and that, without them, these children would face grave harm from unnecessary institutionalization.

Information provided by:http://www.bazelon.org/newsroom/2007/KATIE040307.html

Past Features:

• Juvenile Crime and the Economic and Social Benefits of Implementing Effective Delinquency Prevention Programs: A Case Study of the District of Columbia (PDF)
• CARE-NH/NH PBIS An Initiative of Systems of Care and Education