The mission of the Bureau of Children's Services is to support and monitor a statewide system for the delivery of comprehensive community-based behavioral health services for all of Arizona's children and adolescents.

In 1988, Arizona enacted landmark legislation mandating the development and delivery of a comprehensive continuum of coordinated behavioral health care for children. Previously these services had been provided by different agencies according to individual mandates addressing specific populations of children. A.R.S. 36-3431, et. seq. requires interdepartmental collaboration for a single system to address the behavioral health needs of all Arizona children. DBHS was designated the lead agency for the development of this children's system.

*Some of the files on this page are in PDF format. In order to view, Acrobat Reader™ is required.

Publications:

Title XIX Children's Behavioral Health Annual Action Plan [PDF 162K]
FAQ on Serious Emotional Disturbance (SED) [PDF 386K]
Frequently Used Terms [PDF 198K]
Questions and Answers for Facilitators [PDF 118K]
Describing Needs in Practical Terms [PDF 197K]
A Comparison of Four Practice Models [PDF 407K]
Flex Fund Guidelines [PDF 208K]
Links to Helpful Websites [PDF 200K]

Arizona Collaborative Initiatives for Serving Children and Families
    English [PDF 143K]
    En Espanol [PDF 110K]

Grants:

CMHS Child Initiative Grant - a grant for a comprehensive community mental health services program for children and their families.
CMHS Block Grant

Bureau Accomplishments:

Plan for the Promotion and Delivery of Behavioral Health Services to Young Children (0 - 3 Issues)

Other Activities:
Staff from the Bureau of Children's Services also participated in a number of additional collaborative efforts to improve the system, including:

• Collaboration with the Maricopa County Juvenile Court in the development of special procedures to expedite referrals of model court cases for Title XIX funded services.
• Collaboration with ADJC on the implementation of a new process for expediting referrals into behavioral health services for youth being discharged from correctional institutions and reintegrated back into their communities. This collaborative project will expanded throughout the state and involves all the ADJC correctional institutions.
• Collaboration with the Administrative Office of the State Supreme Courts on improving the care of children whose competency to stand trial is in question. An interagency team addresses restoration of these children and adolescents to competency in settings other than inpatient & residential treatment centers. A number of mental health experts presently conducting competency evaluations assisted with the development of an outpatient restoration program. The final outcome involved new policies for the Courts addressing these children's needs and an increase in the number of agencies providing outpatient restoration programs.
• Collaboration with AOC in the development of a program to ensure that children who enter juvenile detention at either Durango or SEF have access to behavioral health services.
• Coordination with the Governor's Office on the "No Wrong Door Initiative" created in September, 1998, via an Executive Order creating a children and families' service delivery improvement team. This team's mission is to develop recommendations for service integration across state agency boundaries which are designed to enable children and families to more easily receive appropriate services regardless of the agency they initially contact for assistance. Recommendations focus on relieving families of unnecessary duplicative application and case management processes. After assessing all the services and programs provided by state agencies to children and families, the team identified ways to connect multiple agencies, using technology and other tools. They then recommended ways to assist children and families in accessing needed services across all agencies, regardless of the agency they initially contact for assistance.