VOTE YES

 

SUPPORT SENATE BILL 2505 (Kotowski)

 

Help Residential Care Kids Return to Home, School; Avoid Hospitalization

 

WHAT IS PERFORMANCE CONTRACTING FOR DCFS RESIDENTIAL, GROUP HOMES?

Ø       Performance contracting requires results.

Ø       It rewards positive outcomes for kids.

Ø       It creates a new finance model for DCFS children who need residential, group home, and independent living services.

Ø       It invests in program care.

Ø       It rewards providers who meet performance standards.

Ø       It works. At DCFS, foster care performance contracting has been used successfully for a decade, reducing DCFS wards in state care from more than 50,000 to 16,000 today.

 

WHY IS PERFORMANCE CONTRACTING FOR RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT NEEDED?

Ø       Residential youth have complex behavior challenges and clinical needs.

Ø       Performance contracts provide new opportunities to develop innovative programming to provide enhanced clinical treatment, improved stability, and eased transitions to school, home, and work for kids.

Ø       Long-term savings from lowered hospitalization costs can be reinvested in new services that help close treatment gaps and help sustain the benefits of treatment over time.

 

WHY IS SB 2505 KEY?

Ø       Increased risk, new expectations, and more agency resource investment need to be reimbursed for high performing agencies.

Ø       Sufficient money in future budgets to pay for performance contracting results needs to be available to sustain improved outcomes.

Ø       Discrepancies occur in rate setting and program expectations when DHS, DJJ or ISBE require residential treatment in the same facilities and need to be resolved.

Ø       DCFS performance contracting benefits can be extended to any child needing residential services from any state agency.

 

WHAT ARE SB 2505’s REQUIREMENTS?

Ø       DCFS must properly finance the Department’s performance-based programs beginning in FY’10.

Ø       DCFS, DHS, ISBE, and DJJ must work together to set new performance based requirements and rates for residential treatment.

Ø       Provider agencies will work with other state agencies to develop similar performance-based goals and outcomes.

Ø       DHS, ISBE, or DJJ must establish rates that are at least equal to the DCFS performance-contracting rate.

 

WHO BENEFITS?

Ø       Youth. Their families. Local communities. Illinois tax payers.

Ø       Youth can return to school and families sooner with greater stability and avoid costly, state-paid hospitalizations.

 

For More Information:                         

Marge Berglind, President & CEO, Child Care Association of Illinois

217-528-4409