Arkansas Code
Subchapter 7 - Arkansas System of Care for Behavioral Healthcare Services for Children and Youth Act
§ 20-47-703. Findings

The General Assembly finds:
(1) The system for providing behavioral healthcare services to children, youth, and their families should ensure that those services are appropriate, cost-effective, and provided in the least restrictive settings;
(2) Behavioral health and other services identified in § 20-47-502(10) are provided to children and youth by various departments, agencies, and providers at both the state and local level, often without appropriate or effective collaboration;
(3) Providing effective services for children with the most severe needs requires many areas of expertise and shared responsibility among the aforementioned departments, agencies, and providers; and
(4) The system of behavioral health care should be built upon the foundation established by the Child and Adolescent Service System Program principles identified in § 20-47-503. The guiding principles for establishing the system of care should be:
(A) The system should be family-driven, child-centered, and youth-guided and should include family participation at all levels of the services system;
(B) The system should be community-based with decision-making responsibility and management at the regional and local levels; and
(C) The system should be culturally competent, with agencies, programs, and services responsive to the cultural and individual differences of the populations they serve.

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