Service Plans

Reclaiming Futures strives to ensure that youth involved in the juvenile justice system have a comprehensive, family and youth-driven service plan that coordinates the work of multiple systems, including juvenile justice, treatment, education and other positive, community-based supports. Service coordination should involve the assessment of youths' strengths and needs to develop a plan that prioritizes and addresses their goals for identified areas. Youth and families should then be connected with appropriate services to help achieve their goals in targeted domains, including:

Health – Assess and/or treat substance use, mental health, risky behavior and/or health needs

Safety – Promote community safety and ensure smooth transitions between settings and support or create a stable environment for the youth;

Support Network – Cultivate positive community connections by identifying sources of pro-social support and involvement in pro-social recreational and leisure activities.

Personal Accountability – Help youth understand the impact of past actions and behaviors and repair any harm they may have caused; emphasize personal responsibility and accountability;

Family Functioning – Strengthen the family's ability to support and supervise the youth, including maintain and strengthen family relationships, meet unmet service needs, prevent, manage and resolve family conflicts, and identify strengths that can help them meet future challenges

Education/Vocation – Support educational development through positive school behavior, participation, and achievement; vocational development, including skills, job shadowing, and/or employment

Social Competency – Promote social and life skills development

System of Care

System of Care consists of coordinated and integrated community resources, which support children and families with a full network of services and supports to meet their needs based on their individual strengths.

This is accomplished through implementation of a community collaborative effort that seeks to plan needed change at all levels: system, supervisory and practice levels, including involvement from key stakeholders, community and family participants and child-serving agencies. To find out more about the System of Care in your area, talk with your local System of Care Coordinator.

The North Carolina Collaborative for Children, Youth, and Families provides a forum for discussion of issues related to implementing effective systems of care, but is independent of any agencies typically involved in system of care efforts. The collaborative also looks at issues related to training on system of care, including Child and Family teams throughout the state. 

Child and Family Teams

In North Carolina, the Child and Family teams are at the center of how we implement the system of care framework. A youth's service plan should be created with the child and family team, which is a team of individuals who care about the child, including the youth, family members and other formal and informal supports involved with the care of the youth. The plan incorporates strengths, goals, needs and strategies for the identified life domains and clearly defines roles and responsibilities for all parties involved. The plan should reflect the level of supervision and related expectations for compliance with their juvenile justice involvement.

Child and Family teams should monitor engagement in services, address any barriers to youth or family involvement, evaluate progress toward achieving outcomes, discuss any unmet needs, and plan for transition out of formal services.

Two primary trainings are focused on Child and Family Teams in North Carolina:

  • An Introduction to Child and Family Teams: A Cross System Training From the Family's Perspective
  • Child and Family Teams from the Family's Perspective: Part Two—A Cross Systems Approach to Facilitating Family Driven Meetings

The Behavioral Healthcare Resource Program at the School of Social Work, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill links current research to initiatives in mental health and substance abuse systems.  Find out more about the Child and Family Team trainings and trainers available to support your local Child and Family Team efforts

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