Implementing an integrated case management system provides county human service organizations the ability to:
- Promote effective communication among stakeholders at all levels;
- Experience a more holistic view of those being served; and
- Reinforce the connection DHS and the counties have with the individuals and families being supported, as well as their providers.
The nature and extent of permissible access will depend on the stakeholder's role, duties, and what they may legally access.
Child Welfare
Pennsylvania has a state supervised, county administered child welfare system, as established in the Pennsylvania Code. DHS and each of the 67 counties are jointly responsible for ensuring the availability of children and youth services regardless of race, sex, religion, settlement, residence, economic or social status. Each county is responsible for administering a program of children and youth social services that includes:
Services designed to keep children in their own homes, to prevent abuse, neglect, and exploitation, and to help overcome problems that result in dependency and delinquency.
Temporary, substitute placement in foster family homes and residential childcare facilities for a child in need of the care.
Services designed to reunite children and their families when children are in a temporary, substitute placement.
Services to provide a permanent, legally assured family for a child in temporary, substitute care who cannot be returned to her/his own home.
Services and care ordered by the court for children who have been adjudicated dependent or delinquent.
Although all counties are required to carry out the same federal and state mandated child welfare programs, there is diversity among the Pennsylvania counties in how these programs are implemented. These different operating models, which are combinations of people, process, and technology, are the counties' response to best meet their county's needs, local demands, and expectations within their resource constraints.
An example of this would be Philadelphia's Community Umbrella Agencies (CUAs) who perform various duties on behalf of the Philadelphia County Children & Youth Agency. CUAs may only view items assigned to them. They may perform such items as execute placement of a child unless it is the initial placement, family teaming activities, case management activities, assessments such as the Ages and Stages assessment are performed by CUAs, etc.
Intellectual Disability/Autism
ODP operates a base-funded program, a managed care program, and four §1915(c) waivers. ODP waiver programs include the Community Living Waiver, Person/Family Directed Support (P/FDS) Waiver, Consolidated Waiver and Adult Autism Waiver. All ODP waivers are designed to support people with a developmental disability, intellectual disability, or autism to live more independently in their homes and communities. The waivers provide a variety of services that promote community living, employment, communication, self-direction, choice, and control through participant-directed service models and traditional agency-based service models. The Adult Community Autism Program (ACAP), a managed care program administered by ODP, is a fully integrated, comprehensive system of care that includes physical health, behavioral health, social, recreational, transportation, employment, therapeutic, educational, crisis, in-home support, and independent living services.