DSOC Fact Sheet
Durham County System of Care Fact Sheet
Brief History:
- In August 2002, key leaders in Durham County's human service delivery system, including the Directors of Public Health, Department of Social Services, The Durham Center, Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Durham Public Schools, as well as the Chair of the County Commissioners, the Assistant County Manager and a District Court Judge, made a commitment to work together to develop a community-wide System of Care (SOC).
- This group signed a Memorandum of Agreement that serves as a guide to the implementation of SOC in Durham County for all children and families.
- This led to the creation of a team-based support system, the System of Care Infrastructure
SOC Principles:
Key Elements for Durham's SOC:
- A Broad and Flexible Array of Services and Supports
- Child and Family Teams through Wraparound Approaches
- Collaborative Management, Support and Accountability
Target Populations:
Durham agreed to systematically implement SOC through a gradual roll out of certain groups of children and their families.
- Beginning in 2002, SOC implementation was established for children with serious emotional disturbances who need services from more than one system (school, court, health, etc.) and are at risk for out of home placement.
- In 2006, three additional target populations will be part of the SOC implementation:
- Children who are at high risk of academic failure.
- Parents who are receiving mental health and/or substance abuse services and whose children are not receiving such services.
- Parents who have been found by DSS to be in need of intensive family support in their efforts to keep their children safe.
Results to Date:
- Access to services improves. The number of children and their families accessing services more than tripled since SOC was implemented;
- Community saves dollars through more effective care and reinvests in SOC infrastructure to build sustainable SOC
- Cross-agency leadership and collaboration is active and results-based
- Decrease in out of home placements
- Out of home placements drop from 52% to 32% for children with most serious needs, and remains at that level
- Out of home placements for overall population of 1000 children with serious needs remains at 13%
- Of those placed out of home, only 23% were placed within 60 miles of home in 2003; of those placed out of home by December 2004, 89% were placed within 60 miles of home
- Substantial drop in court ordered/county-pay placements (from $700 K in 2003 to $7 K in 2004, to zero as of February 2005 and remaining at zero to date).
- Development of community-based, best practice community services & improved continuity of care
- Over 600 children/families served through integrated Child and Family Teams
- More than tripled Level 2 (Family-based/treatment parent) Homes
- Emerging Community-Based Crisis Continuum:, including Rapid Response Homes;
- Intensive/comprehensive in-home assessments and treatment
- Cross-agency Request for Proposals process continues developing new services
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