Service Coordination: A Guide for Families
Part 1 - Introduction

Introductory letter from NAMI Ohio

Dear Families and Friends:

The National Alliance on Mental Illness of Ohio (NAMI Ohio) was founded over 25 years ago to provide support, education and advocacy to family members and individuals diagnosed and living with mental illness. Since its inception, NAMI Ohio has strengthened its voice and is now recognized as Ohio's Voice on Mental Illness. NAMI Ohio's roots were in serving families of adult children. During our history, there have been remarkable advances in the diagnosis and treatment of brain-based illnesses. As a result, we have seen earlier and earlier identification of mental illnesses in children and young people.

The early diagnosis and treatment of children with mental illness is essential to providing increased opportunities for these children as they become adults. Recovery is possible with treatment! However, treatment of children and adolescents requires a coordination of services across a number of child-serving systems. Without this system coordination, families are caught in a whirl of bureaucratic redtape that inhibits successful intervention and early treatment. The children become victims of a bureaucracy.

As a partner in the Access to Better Care Initiative and the program administrator for the Parent Advocacy Connection (PAC), NAMI Ohio is committed to serving as a voice for children with mental illness and their families. With support from Ohio Legal Rights Service, this guide is now available to assist children and families throughout Ohio. We hope this Guide for Families helps you understand and benefit from Service Coordination. We wish you the best, and believe that together, we can work to improve the lives of children with mental health needs and their families.

Sincerely,
Terry Russell, Executive Director

Who is this booklet is for?

This booklet is for children and families who need or get services from local agencies and organizations. Some children and their families get services from many agencies, and local service providers, and from informal support networks, like community groups, friends, neighbors and relatives.

Organizing all these services and all these people can be frustrating and overwhelming. This booklet can help children and families learn about:

• ways their counties can help to organize services that families need or get;
• how families can be a part of planning and organizing services;
• families rights and responsibilities in planning and organizing services.

What is this booklet is about?

This booklet is about organizing services. "Service coordination" is a way of organizing services for families and children. Service coordination helps bring services to children and families, in a way that is simple and organized for the family.

Service coordination finds agencies, people and services that can help children and families, and then, with the family's involvement, organizes a plan to get the child and family what they need.

In Ohio, county Family and Children First Councils (FCFC) use service coordination to help plan and organize services for families and children. This booklet tells about how the FCFCs do this. The booklet also describes:

• the individual family service coordination plan;
• the county service coordination mechanism;
• and, most importantly, how families can be a part of service coordination.

This booklet encourages your family to know about and be a part of service coordination. Throughout the booklet, we mark, with a picture of a red house, information that is especially important to planning your own services, and to being a part of your own county's service coordination. We list the top ten points to know about service coordination on the Summary Page at the end of this booklet. (Note: For the online version of this booklet, the important points will be marked with the word "Important!" in bold letters at the beginning of the paragraph.)

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