Georgia system of care

How do I access and use Georgia's system of care?

Families can access their local system of care in two ways, 1) contacting their community’s Local Interagency Planning Team (LIPTs) 2) contacting their local Community Service Borard (CSB). 

 

Local Interagency Planning Team 

LIPTs are teams of child-serving professionals whose purpose is to work with the family to plan and coordinate service delivery. Families may connect with their LIPT by contacting their county’s LIPT chair. That information can be found here.

When using the LIPT chair List: first locate your county and then use the contact information provided to connect (email or phone) with the local LIPT chair. If you have any questions regarding LIPTs or how to access your LIPT, contact us at info@mindworksga.org.

 

Community Service Board

Another way that families can access Georgia’s system of care is by contacting their local Community Service Board (CSB). CSBs are behavioral health providers that partner with the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities to offer behavioral health services to families. In addition to behavioral health services, CSBs also offer many other resources and extracurricular opportunities for youth and young adults. To see which CSB serves your community click here.

Who makes up the georgia system of care?

Georgia's system of care feedback loop

Over the last 30+ years, Georgia has worked to implement a system of care framework and infrastructure for children’s behavioral health. 

Georgia’s system of care has grown to include a coordinated, multilevel system that engages youth, families, state agencies, child service organizations, and other community partners. 

The Governors Office

The Governor’s Office collaborates directly with the Behavioral Health Coordinating Council. For more information, visit their website by clicking here. 

The purpose and mission of the Behavioral Health Coordinating Council (BHCC) is to identify overlapping services regarding funding and policy issues in the behavioral health system. The BHCC is led by the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities and composed of commissioners from each relevant state agency, legislators, consumers, consumer family members, and state ombudsman.

Mindworks Georgia (formerly the Interagency Director’s Team) was created by Georgia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities to design, manage, facilitate, and implement an integrated approach to a child and adolescent system of care that informs policy and practice, and shares resources and funding. Mindworks Georgia is made up of over 20 representatives from state agencies and non-governmental organizations that serve children with behavioral health needs. 

Mission Statement: The mission of Mindworks Georgia is to be a multi-agency leadership collaborative that uniquely designs, manages, facilitates, and implements an integrated approach to a child and adolescent system of care that informs policy and practice and shares resources and funding.

Local Interagency Planning Team (LIPT) collaboratives will provide a feedback loop for collaborative learning on the LIPT operation. Regional teams are established at the regional level (six Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability regions). The purpose is to identify shared and cross-cutting issues related to children’s behavioral health as identified in the local interagency planning team processes.

 The goals of LIPTs are to:

  • assure that gaps in services are identified
  • assure that barriers at the local level are identified and addressed
  • assure a common vision at the regional level
  • decrease fragmentation and duplication across partners
  • identify strengths in processes

In Georgia, each community is required to establish a LIPT on behalf of the children living there. While communities may decide if they will use an individual county or multi-county approach, they must bring together child-serving organizations and resources to benefit the families served by the LIPT.

LIPTs improve and facilitate the coordination of services for children living with severe behavioral health needs or addictive diseases. LIPTs focus on assuring the following:

  • Children have access to a coordinated system of supports and services in their area
  • A variety of therapeutic and placement services are available in the community
  • Fragmentation and duplication of services is limited in order to maximize the potential for children to receive the best care for their needs
  • Support of effective referral and screening systems so children have access to appropriate and meaningful care