632.553. Department to designate county for demonstration project--advisory board, members, duties--project goals. - Missouri Statutes

Department to designate county for demonstration project--advisoryboard, members, duties--project goals.

632.553. 1. Subject to appropriations, the department ofmental health shall designate a county in which to establish athree-year demonstration project to design and implement acommunity-based inter-agency treatment system to serve severelyemotionally disturbed children who receive services throughpublic funding. Such county shall be required to fund tenpercent of the cost of the project. The director of thedepartment of mental health shall assemble an advisory board,consisting of members who are residents of such county, to planthe demonstration project. It is the intent of the generalassembly that the demonstration project provide services thatenable severely emotionally disturbed children to remain withtheir families, attend and make academic progress in publicschools and not commit crimes or be incarcerated.

2. The demonstration project shall accomplish the followinggoals:

(1) Provide services in a manner that gives priority topermitting a child to reside safely in his usual family settingif that is in the best interests of the child;

(2) Ensure that when a joint evaluation indicates thatout-of-home care and treatment are required, services areprovided for as brief a time as possible, in the leastrestrictive setting consistent with effective services, and in asclose proximity as possible to the child's usual residence;

(3) Develop appropriate services for difficult to placechildren;

(4) Conduct research into children's mental health servicesystem in order that the system may be evaluated foreffectiveness of treatment and cost benefit on an ongoing basis;and

(5) Provide for other counties or regions a replicable modelfor a comprehensive, coordinated children's mental health servicesystem.

(L. 1989 H.B. 502, et al. § 2)