TITLE:title
Budget Amendment - Social Services Emergency Placement Funds
body
INFORMATION CONTACT:
Ashley Lantz, Human Services Agency - Social Services, Director, 704-296-4380
ACTION REQUESTED:
1) Recognize, receive, and appropriate $13,457 in additional funding from the NCDHHS Division of Social Services and 2) approve Budget Amendment #7.
PRIOR BOARD ACTIONS:
None.
BACKGROUND:
To help address ongoing challenges in securing treatment placements for children in DSS custody with complex behavioral health needs, NCDHHS DSS reallocated $1,237,010 in unused Emergency Placement Funds associated with the behavioral health investment from the 2023 Appropriations Act to the DSS Emergency Placement Fund.
Each county will receive a base amount of $10,000 and the remainder of the funds will be allocated based on each county's percentage of the foster care census. Union County will receive $13,457. If county expenditures exceed the county's allocation, any excess payments will be county funded.
Emergency Placement Funds are intended to temporarily assist county departments of social services in addressing identified placement needs for children in the custody of the agencies who are awaiting a Medicaid leveled treatment placement. While children await the location of the placement, these funds can be used to prevent them from staying in a DSS office and enable local agencies to temporarily provide and arrange for essential needs of the individual to establish or maintain a placement.
Funds may be used only for youth opened for 109 Foster Care Case Management Services on a DSS-5027 or in the Child Welfare Information System to cover client specific costs claimed for purposes of the following:
1) Maintaining a crisis placement through a contract that pays a retainer to an identified placement provider who will accept a temporary emergency placement until the appropriate behavioral health treatment placement is located.
2) Paying a short-term temporary enhanced ra...
Click here for full text