Well-Being

Goal

Ensure that system-involved youth achieve the physical, emotional, and social health needed to be successful.

Strategies

Youth Empowerment: Youth have an active voice in making key decisions about their own lives.

Education, Employment, and Housing: Champion collaboration among major stakeholders to raise the educational achievement of system-involved youth, expand their job opportunities, and ensure that youth who transition out of care have a stable place to live.

Health Care: Provide system-involved youth with good health and mental health care that targets their individual needs.

Work To Date

• Revised and now implementing the Education Coordinating Council’s five-year Strategic Plan
• Collaborating with the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE), the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), school districts, and stakeholders to implement the foster youth school-stability and transportation provisions of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (see report on ESSA implementation and timeline)
• Collaborating with the Los Angeles County Health Agency, County departments, and stakeholders to review and improve up-front coordination of health and mental health services, including those available at the County’s medical hubs, for system-involved youth
• Partnering with the Juvenile Court, the Department of Mental Health (DMH), DCFS, Probation, and multiple stakeholders to revise and develop protocols that went into effect in April 2017 for approving and monitoring the use of psychotropic medication for youth in out-of-home care. The protocols now include more comprehensive information about youths’ histories, behaviors, and alternative treatments and/or other services they are receiving
• Worked with partners to submit user-needs and design ideas to the California Department of Social Services for developing electronic capabilities for processing psychotropic medication authorizations and generating reports for the monitoring and quality management for system-involved youth receiving psychotropic medications (See psychotropic medications system design request)