Practice standards are guidelines used to determine what a human services professional involved with a youth with behavioral or emotional issues should or should not do. They are based on our values and principles, and articulate our common agreement on how youth and families should be served.
The 23 Practice Standards that guide the work of Healthy Minds Fairfax are encompassed within the following areas:
- Participation in Service Planning: Our system supports families to fulfill their primary responsibility for the safety, the physical and emotional health, the financial and educational wellbeing of their children. Voices of youth and parents are heard, valued, and considered in the decision making regarding safety, permanency and well-being as well as in service and educational planning and in placement decisions.
- Service Integration and Care Coordination: Our system embraces the concepts of shared resources, decision making and responsibility for outcomes. All stakeholders work collaboratively with each other and the family to gain maximum benefits from available resources.
- Service Planning and Delivery Process: Service planning is highly individualized to reflect the strengths, needs, and preferences of the family. Such plans address the most critical needs across all life domains, and are more effective than system-specific plans.
- Community-Based Care and Placement Decisions: Public agency representatives and private providers engage families with the goal of safely meeting the needs of all youth while living with their families in the community.
- Equitable Access & Cultural Competency: County, community and private agencies embrace and value the diverse cultures of their children, youth and families. Youth and families will have equitable access to services that support their family.
- Accountability: We are accountable at the individual youth and family, system, and community levels for desired outcomes, safety and cost effectiveness.
Principles