Children and Family Treatment and Support Services (CFTSS)

---

This is one of the services that Bendel is licensed to provide. The term OLP is a catch phrase for non-physician licensed behavioral health practitioners (NP-LBPHP’s). Bendel OLPs are authorized by NYS to deliver services in our offices and as well as in the homes, communities and more generally, wherever clients feel more comfortable. This flexibility in service location is built in to accommodate the competing needs of family and to encourage maxima service utilization. OLP services can be delivered to individual, to family and in group. 

Service Components

1. Conduct an Assessment: Once a referral for services is accepted, Bendel assigns an OLP to sit with the family to determine the presenting problems, the strength, resilience and weaknesses of the child/youth/ and family. Service activities here involve gathering as much information on the behavior, history, child/youth’s mental health status and current functioning. Based on the information obtained, the OLP will conclude on what the presenting problem is. This is technically called a diagnosis and it sets the stage for the next sequence, which is Treatment Planning. 
2. Treatment Planning- Keeping in mind the diagnosis or explanation given for the presenting problems, our OLP work with the family to outline the services that will be provided in order to cure, reduce or lessen the intensity of the presenting problem. Each of the services outlined is technically called intervention. In order to mapping the intervention, the OLP sits with the child/youth/family/sometimes other services providers to  talk about the scope or what and what services will be involved and why, the service goals and outcome expected, frequency, duration for each of the interventions. They also determine the order of services, as to whether to utilize one before the other or to let them run contemporaneously or side by side. These interventions are considered medically necessary to restore pre-crisis balance, regain current function, cure or reduce symptoms. Bendel OLPs ensure that such interventions are culturally relevant, trauma informed and tailored/suited to child’s development. 
3. Psychotherapy (Counseling). This is the third service that Bendel OLP provides. Our OLP relies on the verbal exchange (talk therapy) with the child/youth/family members as the route to arriving at the presenting problems, portraying their characteristics or dynamics, with the goal of restoring the child to pre-crisis functioning, educating the child/youth/family, teaching better coping skills, or reducing the sufferings or effects of the symptoms. 
4. Crisis Intervention Activities: This service is an adjunct to the other three components described above. It usually occurs, when a Bendel OLP responsible for treating (providing on-going services) is called to proffer interventions to stabilize a child whose coping skills are inadequate to deal with the psychiatric, behavioral or situational challenges the child is experiencing. In such situations, Bendel OLP can make a visit to the child in person (Off-site), make a phone call in which he talks to the child/youth (Crisis Triage) and can also follow up with the child/family at a later time, following initial contact (Crisis Complex Care). 

Referral to CPST services is usually based on the outcome of the evaluation made by a Bendel OLP and enshrined in the child/youth’s treatment plan. CPST Services refer to an array of activities and intervention that are put in place to correct the deficit that are uncovered during an OLP evaluation. Generally, CPST activities aim to strengthen the coping capacity of a child/youth and the family/caregiver; and to regain stability in their everyday functionality after an episodic crisis. Specific activities include developing interventions aimed at building resilience, shoring up family bonds, relationship building in the school, home, workplace, community and other places where children/youths spend part of their wakeful day. CPST interventions are delivered in a one-on-one session/meeting with the child/youth, family/caregiver and sometimes involve other service providers (collaterals)sitting alongside with Bendel provider and child/youth, in permissible settings as the child’s school, community centers, workplace, his/her home or convenient settings where the child engages in services and/or socializes.  

Service Components

CPST can take any of the following pathways:

1. Intensive Interventions (Counseling). This involves the provision of counseling services around the issues identified in a child/youth’s treatment plan. Such effort is aimed at regaining balance, learning new coping skills and enjoying the company of loved ones and ability to navigate safely in the community. Specifics here include focusing on problematic relationships as that of child and family members, siblings, or school issues as attendance or social and/or emotional dysregulations, problematic behavior analysis with the child/youth, or issues in self-care and independent living skills. 
2. Crisis Avoidance (Counseling). In all ideal world, we will all be the supermen and superwomen of our lives and be able to avoid crisis, such that we never have to worry about coming into one. Since we know that does not happen, what we can hope for is to have enough coping skills to recognize them when they show up and a rich arsenal of coping strategies that will facilitate selecting the most appropriate ones to cope with the contingencies of such crisis. This is what Crisis Avoidance counseling services is designed to accomplish. Counseling efforts here involves sitting with a CSPT provider in or outside office, but generally in a location which guarantees maximum participation by child/youth and their family in, or outside the provider’s office; with the goal of empowering and building children and family resilience by working with them to identify their crisis triggers, understand the warning signals, and develop strategies to ward-off and/or reduce the intensity of the symptoms and mitigate child/youth’s sufferings. 
3. Intermediate Term Crisis Management (Counseling). One quick way to distinguish Crisis Avoidance counseling from Intermediate Term Crisis Management counseling is to look at the previous as efforts or a series of activities that are put in place so as to avert crisis or to deal with them when they arise. Since we all know that no best efforts can completely shield humans from encountering crises, Intermediate Term Crisis Management are efforts which are put out following a crisis occurrence. Such efforts help a child/youth/family to regain their balance and restore them to (i) pre-crisis functioning in their homes, community and relationships and (ii) present them with the opportunity to learn new ways of meeting and handling such contingencies.
4. Rehabilitative Psychoeducation. Implicit in our characterization of Crisis Avoidance and Intermediate Term Crisis Management (Counseling) services above, is the fact that they are both Counseling efforts. However, while Crisis Avoidance are efforts put in place before a crisis occurs, Intermediate Term Crisis Management focuses on what is to be done following a crisis. Furthermore, while both services bear similarity to Rehabilitative Psychoeducation, they differ because the latter, Psychoeducational  services; tend to be more pragmatic and aimed at actualizing the intervention established in counseling sessions in the real world. Accordingly, efforts here target actual participation, practice and role playing, rather than counseling. As indicated above, such efforts are usually post crisis and help teach a child/youth/family members the art of mastering the interventions that are determined during the initial evaluation. Such efforts aims to help a  child/youth/family members identify environmental stressors as emotional disturbance, substance use, financial management, housing, school/academic issues and generally factors which operate in child/youth environment, to compound/limit their functioning and prevent them from making the most of their day. The goal here is to work with the child/youth/family to empower them by identifying how these stress factors operate, to build strategies to ward them off, lessen their effects or better still, learn new ways. 
5. Strengths Based Service Planning. This is one of the services a child/youth/family should expect from participating in CPST services. It speaks to the efforts by service providers to reach out to and engage and/or collaborate with a child/youth/family in the life of a case (the length of time a case is in care). From the point of referral acceptance, through identifying the strengths and resilience of the child/youth/family, through examination of past coping strategies, to co-naming or co-identifying the presenting problems (evaluation), to developing a mutually agreed upon treatment plan that is unique to the family (development of interventions). Strength based service planning also requires providers to work with end users to periodically evaluate the service goals, celebrate the achieved goals, set new ones or and be bold enough to jettison non-realistic ones as the case may be and to do until case is discharge. 
6. Rehabilitative Supports. Rehabilitative supports are in the final analysis, measures that are put in place to shore up a child/youth/family functionality and reduce the actual stress or effects of the symptoms a child/youth/family member may have experienced during the an episodic crisis with the goal of instilling better coping skills and helping child/youth/family to be more proactive in managing their behavioral health contingencies and/or emotional disturbances. Efforts here are restorative/rehabilitative centered and include activities as getting a child/youth to understand the importance of ingesting his/her medication, understanding the side effects, or when to schedule appointment for refill. Other activities are safety measures, evacuation procedure, basic hygiene, having good knowledge of the community resources as nearest emergency room, knowing what health professionals to contact and other help-seeking behaviors. It will also entail outlining the illness behavior of child/youth/family members with a view to understanding the services utilization challenges and working with the family to imbue healthier coping characteristics.

This is the rejuvenated Skill building services previously offered under the OMH Waiver and OCFS B2H programs. One distinguishing characteristic of the then Skill building and now PSR program is that its activities are based on hands own, the focus of which is to teach set skills to a child/youth. PSR is usually a follow-up from the recommendations (interventions) of Bendel OLP and are part of the child/youth treatment plan. Such interventions and skills are warranted/necessary to restore, rehabilitate, eliminate, support, or remedy some functional deficits or develop new strategies to optimize a child/youth’s development and/or assures that a child/youth develops age appropriately and as a functional and productive family/community member. As with other services, Bendel delivers PSR with cultural sensitivity and trauma informed efficiency.  

Service Components

Service Competence here can be tracked on two levels: (A) Personal and (B) Community  

A. Personal. 

This comprises Daily living skills and social and interpersonal skills

• Daily living skills. The effort here is on the acquisition, maintenance or re-establishment of daily functional skills so the child/youth can manage or mitigate the effects of physical, emotional, psychological or psychiatric symptoms which interfere with developmentally appropriate functional expectations and/or daily living. Services here could also support the youth in managing his/her daily routines – as in health, self-care, medication management, intake, and dealing with side effects, setting refill reminders, interacting with health care providers and the like, and could also target child/youth’s personal interests and community resources that support such interests.  
• Social and Interpersonal Skills. The goal in this second PSR components, is to teach now skills with the aim of enhancing child/youth’s coping skills, increasing community awareness, developing strategies, establishing supportive networks, enhancing personal relationships, developing social and interpersonal skills, social etiquette, anger management, Self-regulation, anger management, trigger watch and avoidance, making and keeping friends, positive peer interaction, positive self-image/esteem, school work, money management, travel skills, social interactional and navigational skills, learning how to manage stress and make the best of their day.  

B. Community. 

This is the third component of the PSR services. The task here is to educate the child/youth about communal roles and how to support child/youth in the efforts to become emancipated group member. This involves working with the child on independent living goals as getting a driver’s license, getting own apartment, bank account, travel skills, workplace etiquettes, safe travels, neighborhood awareness, developing social and interpersonal skills to enable child/youth function in the society, taking up adult roles, training in social etiquettes, establishing the available community networks and resources and how to access them. 

This program is designed to provide support for the family/caretaker of a child who is experiencing psychiatric, emotional, social developmental or substance use difficulties in the home, school, workplace and/or community. FPSS is performed per persons who have lived experience as a parent/caretaker of a person qualified to receive this service and is credentialed by the NYS to provide the service. This person is called a Family Peer Advocate. Like other services, the for FPSS services is documented in the child/youth’s treatment plan and is one of the interventions needed to meet outlined treatment service goals; examples of which might be a simple as shoring up families and communities grappling with understanding child/youth’s behavior, helping to formulate responses to child’s behavior and/or contextualizing appropriate child/youth developmental expectations.  

Service Components

1. Engagement, Bridging, and Transition Support. One of the FPA functions, is to serve as a go-between families and services providers by helping to advocate the needs and perspectives/viewpoints of the family and helping family project/build on their strengths, resiliencies and goals. Other roles include connecting families to needed services, helping families prepare for meeting with providers, facilitating meetings between families and service providers, addressing barriers to service utilization, promoting on-going engagement and helping families find their feet during transitional periods as child/youth hospitalization, new schools or placements. 
2. Self-Advocacy, Self-Efficacy and Empowerment. FPA helps family to develop self-advocacy skills. This helps to grow their own resiliency and to learn to advocate for themselves. This may involve coaching the family on how to advocate, the questions to ask or provide them information on the availability, location and accessing community resources. Looking at options available to family. Facilitating meet up with family raising child/youth with similar diagnosis and promoting opportunity for mutual support. Empowering families and helping them to understand the treatment process. 
3. Developing the skills of parents/caretakers. This FPSS service component is relatively self-explanatory. Here FPA provides parents with viable support as they grapple with the issue of how best to cater for their children/youths, understand their diagnoses, reduce feeling of helplessness, family isolation and/or stigma associated with behavioral, health, or medical status. FPA also supports parents/caretakers to learn more effective strategies of promoting positive behavior, accompanying parents on service errands as school visits, transportation and linkages to service providers. 
4. Community Connections and Natural Supports. We have mentioned some elements of this service component as part of the documenting the foregoing three others. FPA services here include helping family to realign with their community support services. This might be by way of reestablishing past connections or developing new ones. Helping family to find leisure and to integrate families in communal activities. It also includes activities as facilitating group meetings with families who have similar background, with goal of universalizing their experiences and developing supportive network. 

Youth Peer Support and Training designates a range of services that is received by a child who is experiencing, emotional, social, medical, development and substance use. These challenges take place anywhere the child/youth lives and or goes for services: school, youth centers, therapeutic offices, and the like. Unlike the FPSS services which target parent/caretaker, YPST targets the child/youth and is designed to help the youth buy into his/her treatments and to sustain his/her cooperation with the prescribed intervention. Expectedly, services here include on-going training and support, eliminating dysfunctional skills, learning new ones and reinforcing them throughout the life of a case and also providing the opportunity for youth to learn new skills, meeting personal goals, developing self-advocacy skills, enhanced self-image and promoting guided or informed transition to adulthood. Like the FPSS, the YPST is also provided by a peer (youth) who has lived experience and is certified by the NYS as a Youth Peer Advocate (YPA).  

Service Components 

1. Skill Building. Here the YPA helps to develop a context for understanding the contingencies associated with managing the youth’s psychiatric symptoms, trauma, and substance use disorder, develop the skills of goal setting, navigating community resources, building resilience and community support. 
2. Coaching. Promoting hands on experience as seen in modeling, sharing of recovery experience, promoting hope, mutual support and advocacy.
3. Promoting self-Advocacy, Self-Efficacy and Empowerment skills. Helping youths develop skills for advocating for the self, promoting positive self-image, reducing/eliminating negative stigma, teaching interactive and navigational skills, helping youth understand and develop skills for understanding their treatment plan and working with providers to ensure that treatment is relevant to child/family and takes cognizance of their skills. Promoting independent choices and developing child’s efficacy and ability to engage and advocate for self in treatment process.
4. Engagement, Bridging, and Transition Support.
5. Activities here include facilitating connections to providers. Helping to facilitate youth’s transactional phases to adulthood especially as it impinges on treatment plans and age/developmentally appropriate behavior. Helping youth to understand his illness behavior, expectations, treatment plans and rationale. 
6. Community Connections and Natural Supports. Teaching youth knowledge of the community resources, accesses and linkages. Accompanying youth to services locations, transportation management and support. Helping to build a network of persons with youth’s diagnoses through support group participation, universalizing child’s experience and helping child learn from others, while sharing his own experiences and by so doing, heightening the chances of cooperating with treatment interventions. If customers can’t find it, it doesn’t exist. Clearly list and describe the services you offer. Also, be sure to showcase a premium service.