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Project Description

Managed Care/Capitated Payment System: In one or more counties in north central Texas (to be determined) the State will pay a private primary contractor a standard monthly rate (s) to manage the care of children with therapeutic needs, ages 0 to 18, and their siblings. The State will create incentives for providers to move children to lower levels of care.

Major goals are to improve child functioning, reduce time in out-of-home care, decrease re-entry into foster care, increase placement stability, and ensure least restrictive placement settings.

Permanency Efforts: In Houston and surrounding counties, the State and providers will train adoptive families. They will also enhance assessment of eligible children and adoptive parents to increase the availability of adoptive families and better match families to foster children who cannot return home and who are, or will soon become, legally free.

Major goals are to Increase pool of available adoptive families, increase the number of children leaving foster care for adoption placement, reduce average time in care prior to adoptive placement, and reduce disruption and dissolution rates.

Project duration: Sep 2000 - Dec 2005

Sites studied include Houston and surrounding counties; and other counties to be determined in North Central Texas

Sample Characteristics and Sites Studied

Regional catchments area cases (experimental group) will be compared to matched contemporaneous regional cases, to matched baseline (historical) regional cases, and to matched baseline cases from outside the regional catchment areas. The State will measure the rate of change between the experimental group and each comparison group.

Recent Findings in Brief

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