Eligibility

The Qualifiers Used to Determine Eligibility:

• The Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) assessment indicates the child would benefit from the EFC level of care.  
• The child experiences the onset of frequent placement moves from family-based settings due to the provider requesting change of placement or that the provider cannot meet the child’s behavioral health needs.  
• The child has a minimum of two elevated Child Behavioral Health Screeners (CBHS). 
• The child has a provisional or primary diagnosis from the most recent edition of “The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” with a detailed description of the symptoms supporting the diagnosis. 
• The child’s conditions are directly attributed to a primary medical diagnosis of a severe behavioral and emotional health need and may also be attributed to a secondary medical diagnosis of a physical, developmental, intellectual, or social disorder that is supported alongside the mental health needs. 
• The child’s conditions are directly attributed to a mental illness or serious emotional disturbance, a medical issue, or a developmental or intellectual delay.  
• There is evidence that the child’s presenting problems require full integration of 24-hour crisis response, behavior management or intensive clinical interventions from professional staff to prevent the child from having to move from a family-based placement or to transition to a family-based setting from a higher level of care. 
• The child has other specific needs or factors that pertain to the child’s permanency, safety, and well-being, as approved by the Enhanced Foster Care Program Administrator.
  
  This criteria exists to be inclusive for children who might not meet the other criteria for EFC but would benefit from those services. If the child does not quite meet the other criteria (for instance, the child just entered foster care for shocking and heinous abuse but does not yet have a CANS or elevated CBHS, or the child does not meet criteria, but is at serious risk of losing permanency due to behaviors), the EFC Administrator may use this criteria to approve the child for services.