Child and Adolescent Service System Program
What is CASSP? CASSP stands for the Child and Adolescent Service System Program. It is not a service itself but is designed to bring professionals from all of the child-serving systems within Columbia/Montour/Snyder/Union Counties, as well as youth, their families, and their support systems together in an effort to plan effective treatment and service delivery methods for children and adolescents with or at risk of developing a severe emotional disorder.
FAQs about CASSP
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CASSP serves youth 18 years of age or younger and youth up to the age of 21 if the child is involved in special education services. The youth should: 1) be experiencing difficulty in functioning in multiple areas, 2) in need of services and supports to improve their functioning, and/or 3) at risk of out-of-home placement.
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Schools, Children & Youth, Juvenile Probation, Provider Agencies, Mental Health/Mental Retardation Services, & Families.
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• When there is multiple agency involvement
• To coordinate services between agencies
• To facilitate collaboration and communication in difficult cases
• To brainstorm and problem solve difficult cases
• At the families request, if the above criteria is met
• After a crisis is addressed and attempted to be resolved among agencies
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• If parents or adolescents (age 14+) are refusing mental health services, a clinic is not an appropriate place to address this issue. Many CASSP principles would be missing.
• If issues are focused solely on school or academic placement.
• If the situation can be resolved by communication between fewer people.
• “Emergency Clinics” that deal with crises that need to be addressed immediately are not appropriate and are difficult to assemble everyone involved in such short notice.
• Clinics are NOT to be utilized to confront an agency, school, child, or family.
View or CASSP Pamphlet for Even More Information on CASSP.
CASSP Core Principles
Child-Centered
Services meet the individual needs of the child, consider the child’s and family’s context, and are developmentally appropriate, strengths-based, and child-specific
Family-Focused
Services recognize that the family is the primary support system for the child and participates as a full partner in all stages of their decision-making and treatment-planning process.
Community-Based
Whenever possible, services are delivered in the child’s home community, drawing on the formal and informal resources to promote the child’s successful participation in the community.
Multi-System
Services are planned in collaboration with all the child-serving systems involved in a child’s life.
Culturally-Competent
Services recognize and respect the behavior, ideas, attitudes, values, beliefs, customs, language, rituals, ceremonies, and practices of a child’s ethnic group.
Least Restrictive/Least Intrusive
Services take place in settings that are the least restrictive and intrusive available to meet the needs of the child and family.