Providing services for mentally ill and at-risk youth has proved challenging for many counties. The Mental Health Juvenile Justice Liaison Program was created in order to address the needs of the most mentally ill youth involved in the criminal justice system. While this program has proved helpful in addressing the needs of a small number of the youth involved in the local juvenile justice system, it left a large number of at-risk and mentally ill youth without services. To fill the gap, service providers, county officials, and officers from the Champaign County Probation and Court Services Department worked together to form Project A.C.C.E.S.S. (Agencies of Champaign County Engaging in Systems of Services) with support and funding provided by the Champaign County Mental Health Board.

 

The stated mission of Project A.C.C.E.S.S. is to “build a culturally-inclusive collaboration of individuals, agencies, and organizations in Champaign County dedicated to promoting healthy families, strong communities, and an environment which fosters the well-being of children and youth – with a particular emphasis upon those traditionally underserved populations – so they can achieve emotional, social, and academic success.” Project A.C.C.E.S.S. consists of a network of eleven agencies who have signed formal agreements to work together to implement services for youth and their families in a more coordinated and efficient manner without the overlap that sometimes made it frustrating for families to engage with all of the services that were needed. In addition to the eleven partners, there are five additional agencies that Project A.C.C.E.S.S. works closely with but who have not signed on to be part of the formal partnership. Together, these sixteen groups offer services in the areas of mental health, crisis intervention, substance abuse treatment, family conferencing, day reporting for those students suspended from school, after school activities, family advocacy, domestic abuse counseling, mentoring, and faith-based mentoring.

 

The process of referrals to services has been streamlined with each youth receiving a primary care coordinator who works with family to set up services at the various cooperative agencies. With one contact person to work with to set up services and one Project A.C.C.E.S.S. enrollment/release of information form, the families have less repetitive paperwork to deal with and the agencies can communicate with each other to provide more effect services without the duplication of effort that often occurred prior to the implementation of Project A.C.C.E.S.S..  The referrals to the primary care coordinator are made weekly by staff members from the Champaign County Juvenile Detention Center and Champaign County Juvenile Probation Services. Project