Administrative Rules of Montana › Department 37 - PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES › Chapter 37.50 - FOSTER CARE SERVICES AND GUARDIANSHIP SERVICES › Subchapter 37.50.3 - Foster Care Maintenance Payments › Rule 37.50.315 - FOSTER CARE CLASSIFICATION MODEL

Current through Register Vol. 13, July 5, 2024
(1) Each
				facility must be classified according to the department's classification model.
				The model identifies eight levels of supervision and three levels of treatment.
				A model rate has been assigned to each level of supervision and
				treatment.
(2) Each facility
				wishing to contract with the department must be classified according to ARM
				37.50.316 to determine the daily
				rate the department would offer the facility for foster care services provided
				by the facility. The daily rate will be a percentage of the model rate for the
				facility's classification. The department may pay less than the daily rate if
				the facility requests less than the daily rate.
(3) There are eight levels of supervision in
				the classification model:
(a) In Level I the
				facility provides the basic living needs of the youth, including shelter, food,
				transportation and clothing by placing the youth in community family
				therapeutic foster homes. Trained foster home parents provide a skilled role
				model to carry out the implementation of the community based treatment plan for
				the youth. The facility provides supervision based upon an assessment of the
				youth's needs and a specific written case plan that is monitored to determine
				its effectiveness in reducing the need for this level of supervision.
(b) In Level II the facility
				provides the basic living needs of the youth, including shelter, food,
				transportation and clothing. In addition to the provision of these basic needs,
				the facility employs paid caretakers who provide day-to-day supervision of the
				youth in a family-like setting. This level of supervision does not require
				individual assessment of the youth and/or the development of treatment plans to
				determine structured activities or provide the day-to-day care and guidance of
				the youth.
(c) In Level III the
				facility provides the basic living needs of the youth, employs caretakers who
				provide the day-to-day supervision of the youth in a family-like setting, and a
				paid director to coordinate the facility's operations.
(d) In Level IV the facility provides the
				basic living needs of the youth and employs shift staff who provides 24-hour
				structured supervision of the youth and administrative personnel. This level of
				supervision utilizes planned structured supervision by trained staff. The
				facility provides activities and supervision based upon an assessment of the
				youth's needs and a specific written case plan that is monitored to determine
				its effectiveness in reducing the need for structured supervision.
(e) In Level V the facility provides the
				basic living needs of the youth, and employs shift staff who provides 24-hour
				intensive supervision with backup staff available. The facility also employs
				administrative personnel. The facility provides constant control of the youth
				by highly trained staff in a planned treatment environment. This level of
				supervision requires individual assessment of the youth and the development,
				implementation, and monitoring of an individual written treatment plan by
				professional staff.
(f) In Level VI
				the facility provides the basic living needs of the youth including food,
				shelter, transportation, and clothing. The department pays licensed providers
				for the treatment portion of the per diem payment for therapeutic youth group
				homes currently classified as Level VI under this subsection. Therefore, no
				level of treatment in (4) of this rule applies to therapeutic youth group
				homes. However, as a prerequisite to licensure under the department's licensing
				rules in ARM Title 37, chapter 97, therapeutic youth group homes must abide by
				the applicable child/staff ratios for all staff including but not limited to
				program managers and lead clinical staff persons. For the purpose of
				calculating the ratio to check for compliance under the licensing requirements,
				only full-time contracted or employed program managers and lead clinical staff
				persons, or the equivalent number of part-time program managers and lead
				clinical staff persons, may be counted as "one" program manager or lead
				clinical staff person. Full-time program manager or lead clinical staff person
				means a program manager or lead clinical staff person who normally works for
				the therapeutic youth group home 40 hours per week.
(g) In Level VII, a facility must be licensed
				as a child care agency-maternity home. A facility at this level provides the
				basic living needs of pregnant and parenting youth, including food, shelter,
				transportation, recreation, and clothing. The facility also provides the basic
				living needs of the child or children of the parenting youth, including food,
				shelter, baby formula, diapers, transportation, clothing, and access to day
				care services. Shift staff shall be employed to provide 24-hour intensive
				supervision in a home-like environment with back-up staff available. The
				facility may reduce the number of shift staff required for intensive
				supervision during hours in which the youth attend public school when a
				professional staff is on the premises who is able to perform all shift staff
				duties as necessary. In addition, the facility will employ a program manager
				who provides program oversight and the functions described in ARM
				37.97.206(6), and
				administrative support personnel. Professional staff must be employed to
				provide counseling and case management services, to include:
(i) individual and group counseling designed
				to address the youth's mild delinquent, emotional, social, and behavior
				problems;
(ii) development,
				implementation, and monitoring of individualized written case plans for each
				youth;
(iii) to assist shift staff
				in the initial and ongoing assessment of the safety and well-being of each
				youth and child in residence; and
(iv) will assist shift staff in teaching
				skill-building techniques, parenting, and life management skills to parenting
				youth to facilitate the acceptable adjustment to a community or family
				setting.
(h) In Level
				VIII, a transitional living program for parents and children, a facility must
				be licensed as a child care agency-maternity home. A facility at this level
				provides the basic living needs of the parenting youth, age 16 to 21 years of
				age, including food, shelter, transportation, recreation, and clothing. The
				facility also provides the basic living needs of the child or children of the
				parenting youth, including food, shelter, baby formula, diapers,
				transportation, clothing, and access to day care services. The child of the
				parenting youth must be under the custody of the state or the parenting youth
				must be working with the state under a voluntary agreement under
				41-3-302,
				MCA. Shift staff must be employed to provide 24-hour intensive supervision in a
				home-like environment with back-up staff available. In this level, therapeutic
				treatment of the parenting youth may be provided as an ancillary service. In
				addition, the facility will employ a program manager who provides program
				oversight and the functions described in ARM
				37.97.206(6), and
				administrative support personnel. The facility must employ professional staff
				to:
(i) provide counseling and case
				management services with an emphasis on the relationship between the parenting
				youth and the child(ren) being the central focus;
(ii) assist shift staff in the initial and
				ongoing assessment of the safety and well-being of each parenting youth and
				child(ren) in residence; and
(iii)
				assist shift staff in teaching skill-building techniques, parenting, and life
				management skills to parenting youth to facilitate the acceptable adjustment to
				a community or family setting.