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We are pleased to announce project awards to expand services
to children served by the Alabama Department of Mental
Health and Mental Retardation, the Department of Human
Resources, and the Department of Youth Services. This joint
effort is titled Our Kids to express the shared
responsibility for providing the needed services. Funding
will be made available to local communities to develop new
family, school, and community based services that will help
to identify children in need of specialized services at an
earlier time and to offer interventions in the child’s
natural environments. Interventions that occur earlier are
typically more successful and less costly than post-crisis
treatment. Children served at this earlier juncture are less
likely to experience more severe problems later on and are
more likely to remain in their own home and their own school
during and after treatment. The overall objectives of the
OUR KIDS initiative are to work together with families to
lessen the need for removing the child from the home, to
decrease the number of commitments to DHR, DMH/MR, and DYS,
and to decrease the number of multiple needs children who
are referred by counties to the state for residential
placement.
The Alabama Department of Mental Health and Mental
Retardation, the Department of Human Resources, and the
Department of Youth Services will each commit one million
dollars to this effort. The funding was made available
through the Children First (tobacco money) initiative. These
state funds may be used as matching funds to obtain
additional funding from other sources. Public and/or private
service providers may provide the needed services.
Although the awards are given through adherence to strict
criteria, each area’s service plan is unique. Specific
questions about the unique features of each area plan may be
asked to the award recipients at the close of the press
conference.
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