Foster Care Pilot Project

Micro Advocacy for Treatment/Services and Trauma:

After administering the standardized assessment upon the child entering foster care, it will be important to follow up with a therapy that would best fit the client. When it comes to trauma and mental health illness, therapy is not a “one size fits all”. Therapy could include play therapy, art therapy, music therapy, individual therapy, family therapy, and even group therapy. Treatment could also include the guidance from other mental health professionals such as psychologists and psychiatrists and medication may even be necessary to assist with PTSD symptoms, depression and/or anxiety, and other mental health diagnoses such as ADHD, bipolar, ODD, OCD, etc.  Within North Carolina, treatment and services will come from multiple agencies including Thompson, the Children's Home Society of North Carolina, Carolina Outreach, and Alexander Youth Network. 

Mezzo Advocacy for Treatment/Services and Trauma:

Mezzo advocacy for assisting the foster children with the necessary treatment and services to address the trauma would include reaching out to multiple different agencies and therapists (licensed social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists) willing and able to work with the foster care population of ages between 4 and 21. Collaborating with each other will create a united front in what needs to happen for the success of the children taken into the foster care system. Each of the agencies and approved professionals will all have the same information regarding the possible traumas created after being removed from their biological homes as well as all the possible underlying mental health concerns so that each professional is working together for the betterment of the child, rather than each professional working independently. These agencies would report to The North Carolina Department of Social Services. We would collaborate with the organizations listed in the micro section to build a stronger front. 

Cardinal Innovation Healthcare serves as a Local Management Entity/Managed Care Organization (LME/MCO). It is one of the organizations selected to oversee and facilitate the pilot program. Jansson (2020) states that mezzo policy advocates may aspire to alter "an organization’s mission, service- provision policies, funding sources, programs, budget priorities, strategic plans, personnel and hiring policies, relationships between units and programs, and relationships with other organizations." For the pilot program, the  LME/MCO takes the responsible of uniting organizations to effectively administer the standardized assessment and analyze the data. 

Macro advocacy for assisting the foster children with obtaining the necessary treatment and services to address any trauma formed as well as any underlying mental health concerns would be for the advocating social workers, other mental health professionals, and the foster children themselves lobbying to the appropriate governmental officials on getting funding approved so that each foster child that enters the foster care system will be able to get the appropriate and necessary treatment. We will turn to the Nation Foster Youth Institute to advocate for assessments upon children's arrival into the foster care system, readily treatment for any traumatic experiences, and allotted funding.