Tagged With "Treat Them Like Gold"
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Resilience Screening in Cleveland County
Recently, Benchmarks’ Partnering for Excellence partnered with Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina (PCANC) to host a community screening of the film Resilience in our Cleveland County-Partners Behavioral Health Management partnership. The screening provided the opportunity for the community to come together to learn not only about the impact trauma has on developing youth and their families but also on the importance of building resilient communities to support them. To introduce the film,...
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Rockstar Recognition
Benchmarks’ PFE would like to take a moment to “shout-out” one of the Rockstar members of our ClevePart Partnership. Alison Clark is the Permanency Planning Program Manager at Cleveland County DSS and one of our amazing trauma champions. Alison recently received the Local Government Credit Union Innovation Award for 2018 for her efforts in a local initiative she developed to boost foster parent recruitment and adoption efforts in the county. The innovative initiative that landed Alison the...
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Sponsorship Opportunities Available!
We hope you will consider sponsoring our exciting Benchmarks' Partnering for Excellence (PFE) Fourth Annual Conference coming up on September 11-12, 2019 in Winston Salem. Benchmarks' Partnering for Excellence is a leader in system integration and this conference brings together leaders from various systems all across the state. Not only will private providers be in attendance, so will Departments of Social Services, various LME/MCOs, experts with lived experience, and other child and...
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The results are out … so what’s next for PFE Conferences?
Benchmarks' Partnering For Excellence (PFE) 4th Annual Conference was held on Wednesday, September 11, 2019 and Thursday, September 12, 2019 at the Hawthorne Inn & Conference Center in Winston-Salem, NC. Over 175 participants from across North Carolina gathered to learn more about the long-term impacts of adversities. The audience was inspired by national and state leaders who shared ways to improve trauma-and-resiliency informed responses. The conference offered a variety of...
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The Sacramento Violence Intervention Program, Trauma & ACEs
On May 22, I had the opportunity to experience a presentation by DeAngelo Mack on the Sacramento Violence Intervention Program, Trauma and ACEs. The presentation was at Kaiser Sacramento and was directed to residents in the organization. I have worked with @DeAngelo Mack, @Chris Cooper and @Esmeralda Huerta through Resilient Sacramento for the past few years and have admired their work in the community, this was the first opportunity I had to attend...
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Tonier Cain Deserves an Evidence-Based Apology
Tonier Cain spoke at the Benchmarks' Partnering for Excellence conference last month in North Carolina. If you don't know her name you might recognize her as the woman featured in the Healing Neen documentary ( which is must see). I am just starting to recover from her speech. Seriously. It was hard to stand after she spoke. When I did, I went right to a yoga mat in the self-care calm room for a while. I took off my high heels and curled up in a ball for a bit. I'm still digesting her words.
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Training: Ways of Sharing Resources
This is saved as a blog post and there's an attachment. Sharing resources as a blog post is easier to make visual.
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Why We Suck (at Self-Soothing & Self-Care): Dr. Dawn O'Malley
Without coffee and yoga, I'm kind of a jerk. These are my personal "puppy uppers and doggie downers" and prevent me from being cranky, quick to cry, and ready for conflict. Coffee and calming make life more manageable. Humans seem tolerable. Without helpers I might veer into hating humans for being so needy which is not a great trait for a parent, partner or a professional. Or a self. My partner says coffee and exercise are acts of kindness, services he does to promote public safety. In...
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A Strength-Based Assignment
Recently, I was tasked with writing a strength-based personal story to use during my CRM trainings. As a trainer of trauma, depending on your content and audience, often it is beneficial when speaking to others to model transparency and even a bit of vulnerability. Therefore, as a part of my process of becoming certified as a CRM trainer, one of the activities is to write a strength-based personal story.This story can be about yourself and what you have experience personally or you can...
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Benchmarks PFE Teens in Toxic Times: The Cake Example
Approximately a month ago, I had the pleasure of presenting at the Partners Behavioral Health Summit (PBHM), Teens in Toxic Times . The goal of the summit was to generate conversations about topics impacting today's adolescent youth. Participating in these conversations were individuals from of various systems who interact, advocate, and provide services to adolescent populations. During my presentation, Understanding the Impact of Childhood Traumatic Stress on Adolescents, I presented what...
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Community Resiliency Model (CRM) 4-Day Training
I was incredibly fortunate to be able to attend the 4-day Community Resiliency Model (CRM) training. Our trainers were amazing! The knowledge, insight and personal experiences they each shared those days, made all the difference in how I approached what I learned during the training. Going into the training, I knew the basics about the Community Resiliency Model. After the 4 day training, I walked away with a greater understanding of the core skills for self-help and several new and...
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Finding Resilience in the Midst of Hurricane Florence
Avis and her brother, Bruce, have seen some hard knocks in their lives. At 60, she's his sole caretaker. She's taught school, worked as a receptionist, always worked, or wanted to work. Since she started caring for her brother, full-time work has seemed hard to find. He was born with autism 51 years ago. They share her little house in Pamlico County, North Carolina, where she now hopes to be called in to substitute teach, and he looks forward to her home cooked meals. Their lives revolve...
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Hurricane Florence first responders receive free trauma/resilience training
In a webinar offered this morning by Elaine Miller Karas , executive director of the Trauma Resource Institute in Claremont, CA, leaders from several North Carolina ACEs Connection communities affected by flooding and other damage by Hurricane Florence learned more about trauma response and how to better help their communities find resilience. Karas, who was delivering her Community Resiliency Model (CRM) training at Duke University in Durham, NC, offered the free training and provided...
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Juvenile Justice Partnerships / County Collaborative Forum
Last week, Partners Behavioral Health Management held the Juvenile Justice Partnerships / County Collaborative Forum in Statesville, North Carolina. The focus of the forum was “Effectively Engaging High Risk Youth in Communities: Identifying Adolescent Substance Use Trends and Using Data to Strengthen Community Collaboration.” Eric Rowles, President and CEO of Leading to Change, led an interactive training in which he provided participants with tools and strategies to implement to connect...
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Lessons Learned from Sandra Bloom: Tackling STS at the Workplace
"We must be conscious and deliberate in engaging in self-care behaviors." ~Dr. Sandra Bloom Benchmarks North Carolina hosted our annual meeting at the beautiful Grandover Resort in Greensboro. At this meeting, successes are celebrated, and visions are sketched for the upcoming year. This year, members had the privilege of hearing from keynote speaker, Dr. Sandra Bloom, founder of the Sanctuary Model. Dr. Bloom shared how chronic stress and trauma impacts us at an organizational level.
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Old Services, New Lens: A Closer Look at DBT and MST as Trauma-Informed Models for Children
Last week Benchmarks’ Partnering for Excellence hosted a webinar titled “ Old Services, New Lens: A Closer Look at DBT and MST as Trauma-Informed Models for Children.” The presenters highlighted two services that are trauma-informed, but not necessarily recommended often: Dialectal Behavioral Therapy (DBT) and Multi-Systemic Therapy (MST). Dialectal Behavioral Therapy (DBT) Dr. Katie Rosanbalm, Senior Research Scientist, Duke Center for Child and Family Policy, shared that DBT historically...
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Personal stories the set tone of hearing in U.S. Senate HELP Committee on Opioid Crisis Response Act
Jennifer Donahue, Delaware Office of the Child Advocate, testifies before the HELP Committee (Jennifer Perry to her right) ____________________________________________________________ Some seasoned advocates say legislators are influenced by stories while their staffs are swayed by data. There was some of both at the April 11 hearing on the draft Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018 of the U.S. Senate HELP (Health, Education, Labor & Pensions) Committee but it was the personal stories that...
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Reflections on the Film Suicide: The Ripple Effect
To start off Mental Health Awareness month I attended a screening of the film Suicide: The Ripple Effect. The film is a documentary that explains the events and mind frame that led to Kevin Hines—known widely as “The Golden Gate Jumper”—to attempt death by suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. The film focuses on Kevin’s life, advocacy, and influence after surviving such an attempt and the healing process that followed. As someone who is immersed in ACEs science, I could not help...
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Resilience Screening at 2019 Special Needs Mini Conference
A couple weeks ago, Partners In Learning hosted its annual Special Needs Mini Conference for anyone in the community interested in learning more about various techniques, practices, and programs that influence children, particularly those with special needs. Partners In Learning’s mission is to model the highest quality learning environment that stimulates families and the community to provide optimal growth and development of children. The focus of this year’s conference was resiliency. The...
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Introducing Benchmarks’ Standardized Assessment Protocol
According to leading research, 99% of children entering the foster care system have experienced trauma in their lifetime, and few of those children receive the trauma-informed healthcare they need to recover and prosper. These children are more likely to not only suffer short-term from their trauma, but long term as well. Children who do not receive effective, holistic healthcare experience a lifetime of mental health disorders, substance misuse, and physical illnesses, including diabetes,...
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Rockstar Partner Highlight: Davidson County DSS
As we all are aware, COVID has presented its own set of challenges to the wonderful work we all do with the children and families we serve and our Benchmarks’ Partnering for Excellence (PFE) child welfare partners are no different in this regard. During the pandemic child welfare agencies across North Carolina have had to contend with the ever-changing needs and demands of their communities. From helping families get set up with supportive concrete supports during times of financial...
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Going Virtual: How to Have the Most Success with Virtual Trainings
Like many of you, we have had to learn (and quickly might I add) to adapt our work to remote working needs. In doing this we have had to work closely with our partners to not just keep the work we do in our cross-system projects afloat…but to thrive as well. With new partners engaging in the work we do throughout COVID, we have really honed in our skills for conducting trainings virtually. Below we share what we call “lessons learned” on how to improve the virtual learning experiences of...
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Rock Star Partner Highlight: Easter Seals UCP
While the COVID-19 pandemic has presented many unique challenges, it has also been a catalyst for creative solutions to help support those who need it most. This week we would like to highlight the work of Benchmarks’ Partnering for Excellence (PFE) partner, Easter Seals UCP. Easter Seals UCP is working in partnership with PFE in Pitt and Craven county DSSes and Trillium, the area’s LME/MCO. Easter Seals UCP has taken on the challenge to help their clients and staff navigate the pandemic,...
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Triumphant Trillium: Medicaid Managed Care Meets the Challenges of COVID
COVID may have created many challenges, but it also cultivated resilience, perseverance, ingenuity, creativity, and solidarity between our Benchmarks’ Partnering for Excellence (PFE) partners in Pitt and Craven county in eastern North Carolina. As 2021 begins we are still faced with many of the same challenges, but due to strong partnering we have found innovative ways that have allowed us to continue our trauma-informed work in improving the well-being of children and families that are...
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Resilience: The Foundation of a Strong Child-Welfare System
Resilience, which is defined as the capacity to recover from difficulties, is a vital tool in building a strong child welfare system, but what does that really mean? It is easy to say that resiliency is important, but effectively utilizing systems and tools for children and families as well as the employees who serve them is a different challenge. Through the latest research, we know resilience is made up of many different factors, from one’s genetics to their environment and support...
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Social Workers are Essential: Highlighting National Social Work Month
The month of March brings an abundance of things to celebrate, including National Social Work Month! The National Association of Social Workers dedicates March as a time to celebrate the incredible social work profession and to educate others on the many contributions made by social workers in our communities. This year’s theme “Social Workers are Essential” calls our attention to the indelible role of the social worker in responding to the COVID-19 public health emergency. Indeed, for...
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Racial Equity in Clinical Assessments
Benchmarks' Partnering for Excellence (PFE) works to address the needs of child welfare involved youth and families by proactively connecting individuals to appropriate trauma-intensive assessments and treatment. One facet of exploration for Benchmarks is using data from PFE to examine racial disparities in mental health assessment and diagnosis in our PFE counties. It is known that connecting our youth and families to the most effective treatment lies in the hands of a great assessment. But...
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Rockingham County Youth Services Rockstar Spotlight
Rockingham County Youth Services (RCYS) is a local county government agency in Rockingham County, NC that provides counseling and other community alternatives for school-aged youth and their families. RCYS began in Rockingham County in 1979 as a program for troubled youth. Since then, the agency has evolved to provide programs that include counseling for children and adolescents, parenting classes, as well as programs ranging from teen court to substance abuse prevention. The evolution of...
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Breaking the Stigma: Notable Names with a Child-Welfare Experience
May is National Foster Care Month--a month where we are intentional about acknowledging children, families, volunteers, mentors, policymakers, child welfare professionals, and other members in the community who are involved in Foster Care. An important topic, and one worth discussing, is helping children break the stigma associated with being in Foster Care. Considering all the trauma that can be experienced by children within the child-welfare system, foster children might feel as though...
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Support is Key: How Licensed Independent Practitioners in North Carolina are Navigating Medicaid Transformation
In North Carolina, Medicaid Transformation is well under way with most beneficiaries receiving services through Medicaid Managed Care as of July 1 st , 2021. In this model, recipients choose an integrated health plan—covering both their physical and mental/behavioral health needs—from one of five prepaid health plans (PHPs) with which the state is contracted. This is a shift from North Carolina’s previous Medicaid system which separated the physical and mental/behavioral health dollars and...
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Pandemic Fatigue in the Child Welfare Workforce
Benchmarks’ Partnering for Excellence project works closely with child welfare workers to address trauma in families across the state of North Carolina. We are often inspired by the hard work and dedication we see from our state’s child welfare workers. Their days are centered around supporting those in need, and often helping those who find themselves in crisis. It is demanding work and research shows child welfare work and professionals in social services experience higher rates of stress...
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Healing Trauma Through Animal Assisted Interventions
Benchmarks' Partnering for Excellence (PFE) project works to connect youth and families involved with the child welfare system, who screen positive for trauma, with a trauma-intensive mental health assessment known as the TiCCA. The TiCCA, or trauma-intensive comprehensive clinician assessment, is a 6-10 hour holistic assessment where specially trained clinicians dive deep to assess for the impact trauma has had on their client’s functioning and identify any related needs. The goal of the...
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The Hidden Biases of Good People: Implicit Bias Awareness Training
The Dibble Institute is pleased to present an introductory webinar by Rev. Dr. Bryant T. Marks Sr. of the National Training Institute on Race and Equity , which will provide foundational information on implicit bias. It will focus at the individual level and discuss how implicit bias affects everyone. Strategies to reduce or manage implicit bias will be discussed. Broadly speaking, group-based bias involves varying degrees of stereotyping (exaggerated beliefs about others), prejudice...
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What You See Depends on Where You Sit
Benchmarks is very grateful for the opportunity to host child welfare stakeholder focus groups as part of a new project with Vaya Health. Vaya is committed to providing quality services to our most vulnerable population- children that have experienced trauma, child abuse and neglect. As a part of the child welfare project, the data collection process will include the typical number crunching, quantitative data analysis, but we know that does not always capture the entire story. In order to...
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Partnering to Care for Families: Highlighting the Work of Integrated Family Services
Benchmarks’ Center for Quality Integration (CQi) would like to say Happy Anniversary to our partners at Integrated Family Services! A year ago, the agency made the decision to join the Benchmarks’ Partnering for Excellence (PFE) initiative between Trillium Health Resources and two of their partnering child welfare organizations in Pitt and Craven counties. Since joining, Integrated Family Services (IFS) has been more than just a stellar partner. Their commitment to collaborating with...
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Opportunities for Healing: Exploring Strategies to Improve Racial Disproportionalities & Disparities in Child Welfare
Research shows that due to substantial histories of abuse, neglect, and increased exposure to trauma, youth in foster care have exceptional concerns regarding their mental health needs. “Rates of psychiatric symptoms and disorders, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, and reactive attachment disorder, are much higher in children in foster care” (Lohr & Jones, 2016). When we couple this knowledge with data on racial disproportionality and...
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Pamlico Child & Family Therapy - Partner Spotlight
Benchmarks’ Partnering for Excellence (PFE) project works to align local private providers, LME/MCO partners, and local Departments of Social Services, as well as the community to better address the trauma-related needs of children and families encountering the child welfare system. Research shows that addressing trauma early on is imperative to bettering the outcomes of those who have experienced it. With so many children and families having trauma exposure, we recognized a need to...
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Nature RX – How Nature-Based Interventions Can Support Healing & Well-Being in the Face of Trauma
Benchmarks’ Partnering for Excellence (PFE) joins forces with County Department of Social Services offices, LME/MCOs, and private providers to address the trauma related needs of children involved in the child welfare system. Knowing that children involved in child welfare are more likely to experience trauma than their non-involved peers, the partnerships work to screen these children for trauma and connect them to an assessment to address their needs. In response, Benchmarks designed the...
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A Full-Circle Moment
Approximately every six weeks, each Benchmarks Center for Quality Integration team member is responsible for a blog post on our PACEs Connection page. Each month, one blog is a Partner Spotlight which highlights the incredible work happening across the state of North Carolina. For the month of May, Benchmarks Consultant, Sharron Roberts authored our partner spotlight blog where she shared about her “full-circle moment” below. My search to highlight a partner in our Pathways to Permanency...
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Benchmarks' CQi Staff Take a Daring Journey to Leadership
Over the last year Benchmarks’ Center for Quality Integration (CQi) staff have been working through leadership training using the Brené Brown Daring to Lead book. Unlike many books on leadership, Brené tackles the concept through the lens of vulnerability and courage. Both are notions which do not typically come to mind when most people think about leadership. While the book does touch on concepts like effective supervision and management techniques, the foundations are grounded in helping...
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June is PTSD Awareness Month
While many of us involved in this work are aware of the importance of understanding the impact that diagnoses like posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)—a mental health condition which results in coping difficulties following traumatic experiences—and other trauma related disorders can have on people’s lives, the reality is that many still lack necessary awareness. As we, in our roles as professionals, allies, advocates, and educators celebrate PTSD awareness month and work to engage those...
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The Disconnect
What if every decision we made was based solely on what we knew? How might that change our personal behaviors that impact our health? For example, if I took everything out of the equation other than what nutrients my body required, I would only select quality foods 100% percent of the time. This means I would never waiver on my decision to eat healthy, even when offered my favorite treat. When faced with the decision to grab a quick bite from fast food restaurant than to prepare a meal at...
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Engaging Persons with Lived Experience in System Improvement Projects
We are gaining momentum in our Pathways to Permanency Project, a Vaya Health initiative to align the work of the child welfare and behavioral health systems. Workgroup sessions are taking place monthly, stakeholders’ meetings are occurring quarterly and in between we are busy ensuring the work moves ahead so that sustainable change is possible. However, as we have navigated this project it has been overwhelmingly clear that we needed and wanted to include individuals with lived experience in...
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Partner Spotlight: Cleveland County DSS
In this month’s Partner Spotlight, Benchmarks would like to highlight our partners at Cleveland County DSS. Since 2016, Cleveland County has been working with Benchmarks’ Center for Quality Improvement to implement Partnering for Excellence (PFE), a project that aims to ensure child welfare involved youth are appropriately screened, assessed, and treated for trauma in a timely and effective manner. Recently, Cleveland transitioned to the sustainability phase of the project which means all...
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Words Matter: Screening vs. Assessment
Frequently in the world of mental health, we find ourselves using many terms that can become confusing, even for those that work within our systems. As Benchmarks continues to expand projects across North Carolina, we find that the terms “screening” and “assessment” have become a regular part of this confusion. The interchangeable use of these terms has contributed to mix-ups surrounding the terms’ actual meanings, leading professionals to inadvertently refer children and families to...
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Restoring the Nervous System by Healing the Mind-Body Connection
One of the aims of Benchmarks’ Partnering for Excellence (PFE) is to educate communities about the effects of trauma and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs); specifically, how these effects impact the youth and families that encounter the child welfare system. Through our work we know that when systems are trauma-informed, it can help shift the perspectives of professionals from “What is wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?”, which ultimately informs the way we treat and address...
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Suicide Prevention 2022: Creating Hope Through Action
September is Suicide Prevention month, and the theme for this year’s World Suicide Prevention campaign is “Creating Hope Through Action.” Perfectly situated only a couple of months after the United States launched the new National Suicide Prevention and Crisis Line. The new line, 988, was designed to be an easy to remember way for people to access help in times of need. While a new crisis line increases the availability of needed mental health assistance, the stigma surrounding mental health...
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Celebrating Kinship Caregivers
As we turn over the calendar to the new month of September, we want to take a moment to recognize National Kinship Care month. This is a time to celebrate the support of families and other adults with family-like relationships, who have stepped into the role of a caretaker when biological parents cannot do so safely. This scenario is more common than you might imagine, impacting 4% of all children across the United States, totaling more than 2.6 million children. When a grandparent, aunt,...
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WellCare of North Carolina is Increasing Access to Trauma-Informed Services
This month, for our partner spotlight, Benchmarks’ Center for Quality Integration (CQi) is highlighting our partners at WellCare of North Carolina, one of the five Managed Care Organizations selected to provide statewide healthcare coverage to NC Medicaid recipients through Standard Plans. Standard Plans offer physical and mental/behavioral health coverage to individuals experiencing mild to moderate behavioral health concerns. WellCare works to provide its beneficiaries with access to...