Coordinated Children's Services Initiative (CCSI)

What is CCSI?

The Coordinated Children's Services Initiative (CCSI) is a New York State supported interagency initiative that supports localities in creating systems of care to ensure that children (under the age of 18) who are at risk of out-of-home placement remain at home with their families and communities.  At its most basic level, CCSI brings together the principal service providers in the community who meet with parents, family members, and others of the family's choosing to jointly create a coordinated, individualized plan utilizing all of the service resources in the community.  By fostering the creation and coordination of services to families in homes, school and our community, families are supported in staying together and children are maintained in our community.

CCSI is a process not a program per se.  It uses a model of intervention, which is based on the concept that parent-professional partnership and system collaboration leads to the development of the highest quality decisions in planning for children.  Usually, the CCSI Coordinator works together with a Family Meeting Facilitator and one or more Parent-Partners to bring the family together with their natural and professional supports in a joint meeting.  The goal of the meeting is the creation of an individualized, need-based, plan for a child and family utilizing all supports available.  The process concentrates on a family's strengths rather that on problems.  The individualized plan is family driven since a CCSI meeting always focuses on what the family needs.  CCSI's involvement with a family is expected to be for a short period of time (under three months).  CCSI is not designed to provide an on-going case management to a family.

Other levels (tiers) of CCSI

The process described above operates at the level of the family and people directly involved with the family such as service providers and natural supports.  This is usually referred to as Tier I.  Most often, all of a family's needs can be met by the people working at Tier I.  Sometimes, the Tier I group encounters obstacles to developing an adequate plan of care that can only be overcome by the directors of agencies getting involved in the case.  Each county has an oversight body comprised of agency directors, school officials, and parent advocates which can intervene to overcome local obstacles if necessary.  This group is referred to as Tier II of CCSI.  When local authorities encounter obstacles that originate at the state or federal level, Tier II can refer the problem to the Tier III committee which consists of the commissioners of state level agencies.  

Eligibility criteria:

CCSI serves children and adolescents up to 18 years of age. Other criteria for eligibility are as follows:

• The child must be at high risk of residential placement.
• The family is usually involved with two or more systems such as: Mental Health, Probation, Special Education or Preventive Services through the Department of Social Services.  Usually, the services provided to date have proved ineffective.
• The family must have a desire to work together as a team in order to develop a plan to reduce the likelihood of placement.

How to access Services

Typically, referrals to CCSI come from a variety of sources:  parent, school, DSS, Mental Health, Probation, Family Court, etc.  To make a referral or obtain further information, contact the:

CCSI/SPOA Coordinator
Clinton County Mental Health & Addiction Services
130 Arizona Ave, Suite 1500 
Plattsburgh, NY 12903
Tel.  518-565-4060
Fax 518-566-0168 
Email: Lori.jamil@clintoncountygov.com

Below, you can download the referral form and instructions for where to send it.  Both Microsoft Word and PDF versions of each document are provided.