Our Commitment to Children and Their Families

Cape Atlantic I.N.K utilizes a family-centered approach in helping families. You, your child and family choose the services that meet your needs. Cape Atlantic INK believes that getting service from your own neighborhood and community is best. Often the services and resources you need can be found in your own family, through relatives, friends and neighbors. It is our goal to help families build on their own strengths and those of their communities, become, and remain independent beyond their time with Cape Atlantic INK.

Cape Atlantic I.N.K is culturally sensitive. We work with agencies, programs and services that are responsive to the culture and ethnicity of the population they serve and the communities they live in. Cape Atlantic I.N.K uses a team approach. The Team members are the people most important to your family. The team meets to form an Individualized Service Plan for the child and family.

Your Child’s Care Manager

Every child referred to Cape Atlantic I.N.K will be assigned a Care Manager who will be responsible for working directly with your family. The Care Manager will meet personally with you and your child to learn how they can help. The Care Manager’s first job is to listen to you: to learn your concerns, identify your needs, and acknowledge your strengths. Your Care Manager will work with you to make sure that the support you receive meets your child and family’s needs.

How it Works

Your assigned Care Manager will meet with you and your child within 72 hours after the first contact with your family to develop a Crisis Plan. This is an initial plan that addresses any immediate concerns regarding your child’s and family’s safety. The plan identifies specific ways of responding to a crisis situation and will provide emergency phone numbers of people whom you may contact in a crisis situation. Cape Atlantic I.N.K offers 24-hour support to you and your child when there is a crisis. After this initial visit, your Care Manager will visit you or contact you at least once a week until the development of your 30-day Individualized Service Plan.

Child & Family Team and the Individual Service Plan

Cape Atlantic I.N.K. utilize a Child Family Team approach in helping families. We look to develop the strongest team available to meet the needs of your child. The Child Family Team works collaboratively in the development of an individualized plan.

We believe that using a “team approach” is the most successful way of addressing your child’s needs. Your family and your Care Manager will work together to identify those people who play an important role in your child’s life in order to create your Child Family Team. The team will consist of different people who will work with you in the development of the best plan for your child’s care. Typically, a Child Family Team is composed of both natural and formal supports. Natural supports include individuals such as relatives, mentors, clergy, neighbors, and coaches who you have identified as able to make a positive impact in your child’s life. Formal supports may include therapists, teachers, probation officers, or other professionals who have been chosen to or have provided services to your family.

Together you, your child’s Care Manager and Child Family Team will create a plan of care also known as an Individual Service Plan (ISP). This plan will serve as a road map which will guide you and your family’s care while working with Cape Atlantic I.N.K. The plan is designed to help your family achieve both immediate and long-term goals. In the Child Family Team discussion, all life domains with be addressed. These life domains include the following:

• Safety
• Family
• Emotional/Behavioral
• Cultural/Spiritual
• Finances
• Legal
• Living Situation
• Medical
• Educational/Vocational
• Social
• Recreational
• Substance Abuse
• System Barriers

The plan utilizes the strengths of all team members to address the child and family’s identified needs through the use of individualized strategies. The plan is tailored specifically to your child’s needs. Once the plan is developed by the Child Family Team, the plan is put into writing by the Care Manager in an Individual Service Plan and distributed to each member of the team. The strengths, needs, strategies and responsible members of the team are all identified in the ISP. Your first Child Family Team meeting will be held within 30 days of your child’s enrollment with Cape Atlantic I.N.K and will be reviewed and updated by the Child Family Team within 75 days.

Your Child Family Team meeting will be held at a time and location most convenient to you. Your Care Manager is responsible for coordinating and facilitating the Child Family Team meeting, however, it is important that you assume an active and lead role in your family’s team meeting. We believe that you are the professional in your family and are most knowledgeable of your family’s needs. The plan developed during your Child Family Team meeting will specifically outline the services that you and your team have identified for your family. These will include services that Cape Atlantic I.N.K may arrange through providers in our network and voluntary services available from your neighborhood and from family members and others.

The Family Support Organization (FSO)

The Family Support Organization (FSO) of Atlantic and Cape May Counties is an organization that is dedicated to helping families. The FSO works in partnership with Cape Atlantic I.N.K to provide supportive services to the parents and guardians of children enrolled in the CMO.
The Parent Partners of the FSO serve as a source of information, make referrals, and assist the caregiver in navigating through “the system”. At your request, your Parent Partner can be a member of your Child Family Team.

Confidentiality

Cape Atlantic INK will keep information pertaining to your family and child strictly confidential unless it is information that may pose harm to your child or others. Information shared is only with your consent and is only for the purpose of obtaining services that will help your child and family. You are asked to sign an agreement at the start of the program that allows Cape Atlantic I.N.K to share and or receive information from past providers/people who have assisted your family. All of the members of the Child Family Team are required to maintain this same level of confidentiality. Team members sign a confidentiality agreement before participating in the Individual Service Plan meeting.


Special Requests

• If your child or a family member is in need of an interpreter, please ask your Care
Manager to coordinate this service for you.
• If you or a family member is disabled, Cape Atlantic I.N.K will work to
accommodate your needs to the best of our ability.
• Cape Atlantic I.N.K uses providers from many different cultural backgrounds.

We work to offer families a choice in the providers. Should you have any preference in receiving services with a particular cultural or ethnic orientation, please feel free to bring this to the attention of your Care Manager.
Special Requests

• If your child or a family member is in need of an interpreter, please ask your Care
  Manager to coordinate this service for you.
• If you or a family member is disabled, Cape Atlantic I.N.K will work to
  accommodate your needs to the best of our ability.
• Cape Atlantic I.N.K uses providers from many different cultural backgrounds.

We work to offer families a choice in the providers. Should you have any preference in receiving services with a particular cultural or ethnic orientation, please feel free to bring this to the attention of your Care Manager.

Value Options

Contracted Systems Administrator (CSA)

Value Options is the Contracted System Administrator (CSA) designated to organize services and funding into a single system where child welfare, mental health and juvenile justice work together. The CSA provides a systematic way to ensure children and their families receive optimal treatment for an appropriate length of time while remaining as close to home as possible.

It evaluates appropriate treatment requirements for children based on uniform assessment tools and places them accordingly in the continuum of care. Through the Mobile Response Stabilization Services, the CSA provides 24 hour assistance to help families get services.

Youth Case Management

When children are deemed to need less strenuous care than that provided by a Care Management Organization, Value Options will refer them to Youth Case Management (YCM). YCM has a leadership role in the coordination and integration of services designed to optimize care for children and families.

Care Managers at YCM develop supportive relationships with the children and families they serve. As with the CMO, care is based upon the family’s strengths, and all interventions are characterized by dignity, respect, and self-determination.

YCM advocates for the needs and views of the child and their family. The goal is to transition children out of the continuum of care once the child and their families are confident that they can access the services on their own.

Children’s Mobile Response and Stabilization Service (CMRSS):

Children’s Mobile Response and Stabilization Services is a single, integrated, comprehensive system of mobile response, stabilization intervention and transition. MRSS provides timely interventions to prevent disruption of their current living arrangement, including out-of-home placement.

It provides a face-to-face delivery of service at the site of the escalating behavior, whether this is the child’s home, school, group home or another living arrangement, including resource and foster family homes.

With parental/guardian consent, family members, professionals, and other concerned parties can access MRS services by calling the CSA at 877-652-7624, 24 hours a day / 7 days a week.