Core services to Child Welfare programs
The Mesa County Services Program (Core) delivers various services to families involved with Child Welfare through the Mesa County Department of Human Services (MCDHS) with a goal of strengthening families and protecting children and youth. These programs are designed to mitigate further issues of abuse and neglect of children and youth and support parents and caregivers by encouraging behavior change to positively impact their family.
The goal of Core services is to:
- Support children, youth and their families so that children/youth do not enter out-of-home placement, or
- Provide services that safely promote the reunification of the children or youth with their family in the event placement out of the home is necessary.
The six basic services provided through Core are:
- Mental Health Therapy: This is a therapeutic intervention utilizing a licensed therapist. This service can include diagnostic and/or therapeutic services to assist in developing the family services plan and improve family functioning and relationships.
- Home-Based Services: This service is designed to work with the strengths of a family. The program works with families in crisis to produce positive changes necessary to protect children and preserve the family structure. The services may include learning new parenting skills, problem-solving, support groups, conflict management, and informing families about available community resources.
- Sexual Abuse Therapy: This service is provided to children or youth who have been victims of sexual abuse to prevent further victimization. The services may be provided through various modalities, including family, group, or individual therapy.
- Adolescent Day Treatment: A comprehensive, highly structured setting where therapy and educational services are provided to middle school-age youth for five hours daily. There must be documented inability of the child to attend public school, and the level of risk to the child must be manageable.
- Life Skills: These services focus on teaching daily living skills and are designed to assist the clients in achieving their treatment plan goals. Services may include improving household management, improving parenting competency, accessing community services, and basic problem-solving.
- Family Time Visitation: This is a program designed to serve families where children have been removed from parental care and placed out of the home due to abuse and/or neglect. In some instances, the family time visits between the parents and child are supervised by a professional. Family time coaches encourage parents to use the skills they are learning from family time coaching or other service providers. The ultimate goal is preserving and strengthening the family ties so children/youth can safely return home.
The MCDHS Child Welfare Division strives to be responsive and engaged with families needing these Core Services in order to reduce the use of out-of-home placement when safety can not be mitigated and reunify children and youth with their parent(s) when safe.
For more information on Child Welfare programs and services through MCDHS, please visit our Child Welfare webpage.
