Agency Type: Not For Profit
NHS provides Behavioral Health and Rehabilitation Services (BHRS) specifically for individuals under the age of 21 with an ASD throughout the state of Pennsylvania. BHRS is a 1:1 Medicaid-funded program providing family and child-centered services in various environments to reduce or replace problem behavior with positive, socially appropriate behavior. Services are driven by the psychological evaluation and treatment plan, and progress is monitored through the collection and analysis of data. Services include Behavior Specialist Consultant (BSC), Mobile Therapy (MT), and Therapeutic Staff Support (TSS). These services must be deemed medically necessary by a psychologist.
Therapeutic Family Care (TFC) and Foster Care Plus (FCP) offers a structured, community based, therapeutic family environment for children, who are confronting serious emotional and behavioral health challenges. TFC/FCP provides children with a treatment alternative to hospital and other forms of residential treatment services. TFC accepts children with the most severe diagnosis, while FCP is able to accept children with somewhat less serious challenges. FCP is however a service for children, who require high levels of intense supervision and treatment. Referrals are accepted from the Mental Health and Mental Retardation (OMHR), Children, Youth and Families (CYF) and Juvenile Probation Offices (JPO).
The Stepping Stones Program provides quality, specialized services for children and adolescents diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) between the ages of 3-7 and 8-14. This 52-week alternative program is designed to be a “step-down” from traditional 1:1 in-home BHRS services and can be offered in preparation for transition to school/group programs, as a complement to half-day school programs, or as an after-school or summer program.
All services are aimed to help individuals become more independent and fulfilled in their everyday lives. NHS Human Services provides Home and Community Habilitation to assist individuals in acquiring, maintaining and improving self-help, domestic, socialization, and adaptive skills necessary to reside successfully in the home and community based settings. Services consist of support in the general areas of self-help, communication, fine and gross motor skills, mobility, therapeutic activities, personal adjustment, relationship development, socialization, and the use of community resources. NHS provides transportation to the individual only supported in this program. In most cases, medication administration is not completed by our direct support professionals (DSP). However, in the rare case when this becomes a necessity in order to maintain the person’s medical stability while in service, the assigned DSP completes training prior to undertaking this responsibility. Many of the people that we support prefer eating at community establishments- we will provide the transportation, planning and accompaniment to assure this occurs, but NHS does not provide the meals or purchase meals for this unlicensed service. Short term respite is offered to families to relieve primary caregivers. These services normally occur in the home of the individual, although community access as planned or necessary is also facilitated when providing respite. Staff focus is to maintain the health, safety and contentment of the person in respite. Certainly if a meal is needed during provision of respite in the person’s home, and the ingredients are provided, we will prepare a meal for the individual being supported. Should we provide long term respite in a licensed setting, meals prepared for the individuals living there will be shared with person receiving respite. These services are provided to eligible individuals whose teams have selected NHS as a provider of service. Authorization from the funding source is required before any service can be initiated.
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