RISE PROGRAM

This program ensures deliverable and effective service intervention to better serve children and families in Georgia. The term RISE comes from four core words: Resilient, Integrity, Solution-Focused, and Empowerment. The purpose of this program is to assist children and families with their mental, emotional, and behavioral needs by being resourceful, becoming self-sufficient, and rising into independent and successful individuals. This program will help children and families become huge advocates for themselves.

The program services include, but are not limited to, assisting youth find permanent housing, providing temporary rental assistance, transportation, childcare assistance, and assisting participants obtain and enhance life skills, which may differ from client to client. Some examples of these life skills include budgeting, maintaining a clean and organized household, time management and scheduling, and goal setting towards the future. This program is contracted with the Department of Children and Families Services (DFCS).

Therapy

Individual and Family Counseling/Therapy is a professional relationship that empowers diverse individuals, families, and groups to accomplish mental health, wellness, education, and career goals.  Counselors work with clients on strategies to overcome obstacles and personal challenges that they are facing.

Wrap-Around Services

Wrap-Around (WA) services provide much-needed support to families in crisis and to vulnerable children who are in unsafe environments or circumstances. WA services are intended to promote safe and stable families as well as facilitate early reunification and/or permanency for children in care. As children enter care, the need for WA services are determined as part of the CCFA. Some WA services include:

• Parent Aide: The Parent Aide program serves to stabilize families in need of intervention by providing in-home and group parenting education through referral to community-based resources utilizing para-professional family support and prevention. The Parent Aide program is available to any family with an open Family Preservation, Permanency, or Adoption Child Welfare case. These services are not designed to address issues that require clinical intervention. 
• Early Intervention: The Early Intervention Program provides preventive support services to families that have some indicators of problematic family functioning which are not significant enough for Child Protective Services intervention or for families with a low assessed future risk of maltreatment. Early Intervention is a short-term program that engages para-professional staff to provide parenting education and support to families through group classes and in-home visitation.
• Homestead: The Homestead program helps to stabilize families in need of intensive, crisis-oriented therapeutic intervention in an effort to ensure a safe and healthy family environment. These services are available to families with an open Family Preservation, Permanency, or Adoption Child Welfare case.
• Prevention of Unnecessary Placement (PUP): The PUP program works to reduce risk factors that contribute to child maltreatment. The PUP program offers an array of support and intervention services via assessments and counseling through vendors quipped with the necessary skills and training to address medical and/or mental health needs. PUP may also be used to help a family through a financial crisis by providing emergency funds for rent, utilities or child care. PUP services are available to families with an open Investigation, Family Support, Family Preservation, Permanency or Adoption Child Welfare case.

Comprehensive Child and Family Assessment

The Comprehensive Child and Family Assessment (CCFA) is a public/private strategy developed with the goal of improving the well-being, permanency, and safety outcomes for children in foster care through comprehensive assessments. The CCFA serves as the foundation for case planning decisions and for making recommendations to juvenile courts. The CCFA also provides children and families with the opportunity to receive appropriate services and to have successful outcomes.

Domestic Violence Assessments

Assessing for domestic violence is a process to ensure the safety of children and the adult victim. This assessment examines domestic violence, a child’s exposure to violence, and assesses the safety and risk of children, youth, and families affected by the violence.

Parental Fitness Assessments

A Parental Fitness Assessment is a comprehensive assessment to identify a parent’s strengths and needs as well as aspects of a parent’s lifestyle and habits that may impact their ability to properly parent their child.

Substance Abuse Assessments

A Substance Abuse Assessment is a comprehensive assessment to examine substance use/abuse history and to determine if an individual meets the criteria for a substance use disorder diagnosis and, if so, how severe the disorder is at that time.

Additionally, this assessment will determine if there is a comorbid mental health disorder exacerbating the substance abuse. The substance abuse assessment also examines how the substance use affects the client’s daily life. The information gathered is used to create and perfect a treatment plan to focus on recovery.

Drug Screenings

Drug testing is a tool that can be used to determine if a parent is using substances and to facilitate decision making with families affected by substance use disorders.

Drug testing refers to the use of biologic sources, such as urine, saliva, sweat, and hair to identify specific substances or their metabolites in an individual’s system. The most effective way to identify a substance use disorder is to use a combination of screening and assessment tools inclusive of safety and risk assessments, clinical instruments, random drug testing, self-reports, and observations of behavioral indicators.

SBH is a contracted provider of drug screen services including urine, hair follicle, oral swabs, and sweat patches. We recommend a Substance Abuse Assessment if a suspicion of substance use/abuse is present.

Other services includes: Kinship Care Assessments, Supervised Visits, Transportation, Crisis Interventions, Psychological Evaluations, Parent Education, Behavioral Aide Support and HOTELING.