Provides for coordinated children's services for children and youth with cross-system needs

Section 2 of the bill would provide for an immediate effective date.

Existing law

Social Services Law § 483-c currently sets forth the CCSI principles and framework.

Legislative history

This is a new bill.

Statement in support

In 2002, legislation was enacted to codify CCSI, an interagency initiative launched in the 1990's to support localities in the creation of integrated systems of care that help children and their families who have needs that cross administrative and service delivery lines. CCSI's current framework comprises three levels, referred to as tiers. Tier III is the statewide team made up of state agency and family representatives; tier II is the county-level team made up of local government, service systems and family representatives; and tier I are interagency teams that are created to meet the particular needs of a child and his or her family.

Chapter 247 of the Laws of 2002 set forth a set of core principles to guide cross systems planning, funding, and individualized services to children and youth and their families. While CCSI has received widespread support, several recent studies of CCSI provide suggestions for improving this statewide interagency initiative. Most recently, in 2007, the state-level committee, or Tier III, commissioned an assessment of CCSI by Caldwell Management Associates. (the "Caldwell Report"). Chief among the recommendations provided in this review was the suggestion to revitalize the state-level CCSI team to improve CCSI's effectiveness. Under the current structure, no state entity has administrative responsibility for CCSI; it is an interagency initiative with no one agency at the helm; This proposal designates the Executive Director of the Council, the State's interagency entity, as Chair of the state-level CCSI team, thereby providing a single point of accountability and resources for interested parties, including state and local officials and family and youth representatives. Furthermore, this designation would help ensure the State is responding in a proactive and timely manner to concerns regarding the coordination and integration of systems of care.

The Caldwell Report also recommended that CCSI's statute be amended to better define the children who are served. Current law provides that CCSI is intended to assist children with "emotional and/or behavioral disorders." The bill better defines the population of children and youth that CCSI is designed to serve and uses less stigmatizing terminology. It also removes any references to age in the definition of a child or youth, as this restriction was viewed as unnecessary given that each involved agency already has its own age-based eligibility standards and these ages vary by system.

While the current statute sets forth the structural framework and guiding principles of the initiative, the law does not provide clear expectations for the entities participating in CCSI. This omission makes it difficult to accurately assess the various components and overall efficacy of the initiative. This proposal seeks to address this deficiency by requiring the state-level committee, in collaboration with the regional and county CCSI teams, to develop appropriate reporting mechanisms designed to track the outcomes achieved through CCSI.

This proposal also adds a new, regional, level to the CCSI structure. In practice, the regional state agency staff play an integral role in service delivery, as they directly work with counties and service providers. This proposed addition to the CCSI structure formalizes the expectations for regional staff.

The state agencies which compose the Council have expressed a renewed commitment to working together to best meet the needs of New York's children and families, and these health, human services and education agencies have all called for the Council to assume an interagency leadership role. This proposal seeks to codify the CCSI structure to ensure that the Council is properly empowered to carry out this function.

Budget implications

This proposal has no fiscal implications.

Effective date

This proposal would take effect immediately.