Service
Principles
Alaska's Young
Family Network
Long Range Plan
|
Our Mission is to help families and
professionals work together as full partners, so that they can
improve the systems of care &emdash; at both the local and state
levels &emdash; for children who have a mental disorder.
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The following are principles that we feel are important in
developing modern services. (These are taken from the NAMI Alaska
1996 plan. We intend to review the principles which were prepared by
the Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health in
conjunction with the Center for Mental Health Services. We want to be
consistent with the national principles, but we may add to them as we
deem appropriate)
For children and
youth
- The needs of the child or youth must come first.
- With abnormal emotions or behavior should be identified and
helped as early as possible.
- Who are affected by a mental disorder, all should have access
to the help that they need, even if they are not seriously
impaired.
- With abnormal behavior or emotions, all should be diagnosed by
a professionals that are trained to diagnose and treat childhood
mental disorders.
- Treatment should be by a multidisciplinary team that includes
a child psychiatrist, and other professionals with training in
childhood mental disorders, plus the family, school teachers and
other significant people in the child's life.
Families should
be
- treated with respect and valued for their strengths.
- given the information, training, and support that they need to
help their children.
- full team members in the preparation, conduct, and evaluation
of treatment plans for their family member.
For services
- Each community should have an agency responsible for the whole
child, and their family, from preconception care to age 22, so
that physical and mental health and social service and educational
needs are met in an integrated manner.
- Outcome evaluations should be based on how well a therapy
helps a child live a full life as a productive member of
society.
- Services need to be oriented to the needs of the child and
family rather than the needs of the agency and program.
- Services should be assertive to seek out a child or youth in
need before the individual is in trouble with the law, pregnant,
or addicted to drugs.
- Families should be full partners with service providers in
determining what services are needed and their effectiveness.
- State programs must be based on the best that science has to
offer.
- All state and grant agency staff that have a responsibility
for child and youth services should have awareness training
concerning the causes and treatments for mental disorders, and
direction to help reduce the stigma and discrimination associated
with these complex disorders.
- All parenting classes should include modern video and other
training materials about the causes and treatments of mental
disorders, and should help identify and refer children to
appropriate help.
- Public programs should help families, who use their own
resources, find effective services.
- Multidisciplinary diagnosis and treatment should be on a
sliding fee scale so that they are accessible to all children
regardless of their family income.
- Both the state and local community should make optimal use of
all public and private economic and human resources and should
develop local access to professionals trained in childhood mental
disorders.
- Quality assurance programs should include a section to
evaluate the community against other communities in the state on
how well they are doing in identifying all of the children that
need help and how well they are doing in getting appropriate help
for each child.
- The services of specialty research centers should be used to
help people who do not respond to local treatment.
- Alaska should develop specialized skills in Alaska to the
extent that this is cost-effective from the child's
standpoint.
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Date Last Modified: 5/7/01