Mental Health Case Management:
Care Coordination for Children and Youth

Empowering Minds Care Coordination Program supports children, adolescents, and transitional aged youth with serious mental health disorders with gaining access to needed medical, mental health, social, educational, and other services. Our model focuses on the internal strength of the family and delivers unconditional care to children and families with serious mental and behavioral health concerns as well as highly individualized, strength-based and needs-driven planning.

Care Coordination is a collaborative process which empowers families to achieve positive outcomes through a structured, family-centered approach by providing support in the community and reducing the likelihood of out-of-home placement and referral to a higher level of care.  Case managers help families plan the services they need, link them to the services, coordinate the services, and monitor how the children and families are responding to services. Case managers provide skills training to children, along with their families and caregivers to help them manage their own symptoms and behavior independently. 

Care coordination services assist youth with learning to follow household rules, increase desired behaviors in school, and interact more positively with others, while managing the symptoms of diagnoses. Consistent team meetings assist families with collaborating with appropriate service providers to identify the youth’s strengths and needs, discuss goals for treatment, and navigate the healthcare system. Services are offered through various levels of care (LOC) depending on the severity of the youth’s needs. A formal assessment is conducted by our team of qualified case managers by working with the youth’s family, support team, service providers, and other agencies to create an individualized care plan based on specific needs and strengths.  Those plans are reviewed periodically and amended as necessary to indicate and build upon the youth’s growth and challenges. This increases individual feelings of recovery, independence, and the confidence to use those learned tools to manage the symptoms of their illness.

The Care Coordination program also includes emergency and crisis support and advocacy services. Our case managers help ensure that every youth in our program has the personalized services and supports they need to thrive in the communities they call home.