Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb at a May 2024 event. Holcomb unveiled a new project with four state agencies to improve support to children with high acuity needs. Photo by Leslie Bonilla Muñiz, Indiana Capital Chronicle.

By Whitney Downard
Indiana Capital Chronicle

INDIANA — Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb announced a cross-agency initiative Monday to provide more support to children with high acuity mental and behavioral health needs and keep youth in crisis in the least restrictive setting possible.

“Our agencies are working with a growing number of families who have children with significant and complex mental and behavioral needs,” Holcomb said in a release. “These families need help navigating the supports available to them so children receive the right services in their individual communities, and we are committed to helping them.”

The Family and Social Services Administration will be one of the four state agencies participating alongside the governor’s office in the Children with High Acuity Needs Project, as well as the Department of Correction, the Department of Child Services and the Department of Education. The four-point plan is geared toward a child’s overall well-being, according to the release.

A multi-agency rapid response team has assisted more than 20 children and their families, state officials shared, by “finding an appropriate placement and connecting to needed services, helping to stabilize crisis situations.”

The four pillars of the project include:

• Cross-agency navigators that can coordinate care across state agencies and local services, whether education, mental health needs, intellectual or development disabilities, child welfare, juvenile justice or physical health needs. This pilot program will focus on using schools to avoid more restrictive settings, such as institutionalization, and helping those children leaving residential settings adjust to home life.
• Foster parents and kinship caregivers, who will receive additional support to care for children with high acuity needs and be eligible for respite care. The state issued the request for proposals earlier this year and awarded contracts to 13 businesses serving different parts of the state.
• A Gatekeeper process review for children in the state’s psychiatric hospital network to keep children in the least restrictive setting possible and allow youth to leave when ready, rather than staying longer than medically necessary.
• Youth transitional homes and caregiver coaching that will be an “intermediary” level of support for youth returning to the community following residential care. As opposed to traditional group homes, these residences aren’t designed to be long-term, but rather “to help youth reconnect with their daily routines and communities.” Families will also receive caregiver coaching.

The ongoing initiative, which will have upcoming stakeholder meetings with more information, will be receive some support from the state’s allotment of the National Opioid Settlement.