Kentucky IMPACT, established in 1990, is a statewide program which coordinates services for children with severe emotional disabilities and their families. Service Coordinators and Local Resource Coordinators serve children through 18 Regional Interagency Councils.

The report "Kentucky Impact at Year Ten" evaluates who Kentucky IMPACT is serving, how the program has changed over ten years, and its effectiveness.

Coordinating Services for Children

Sometimes the best medicine is a home remedy, especially if it means keeping a child with a severe emotional disability out of a psychiatric hospital or other restrictive treatment facility. Although some children do require hospitalization, most children have a better chance of doing their best when they receive care at or near their home, surrounded by a loving family and supportive community. That's where IMPACT can help. IMPACT helps create and coordinate services that allow a child with an emotional disability to receive care at home or in their community.

What kinds of services are available?

IMPACT coordinates services between Kentucky's child-serving systems: Social Services, Family Resources, Juvenile Justice, Medicaid, and a parent representative. Since no two children are alike, the services coordinated by IMPACT are different for each child. Also, services differ from community to community, depending on the resources available.

To find out which services are available in your area, contact your Local Resource Coordinator for Kentucky IMPACT.

In addition to the services offered by IMPACT's partner agencies, services coordinated by regional IMPACT teams may include the following.

• School Support: Providing individual and group therapy in the school, while at the same time helping teachers, counselors and peers better understand children with emotional disabilities.
• In-Home Services: Helping families develop skills in their home to cope with everyday life.
• Respite: Giving families a few hours to meet some of their personal needs while their child is being cared for by a trained professional.
• Therapeutic Foster Care: Meeting children's therapeutic needs through trained foster parents.

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Who is eligible for IMPACT services?

Children must meet all of the following requirements:

• Must be under age 18.
• Must have a diagnosis of a psychiatric disorder. Diagnosis of chemical dependency, mental retardation or other brain disorder may be present, but cannot be the primary diagnosis.
• Must be severely limited in at least two of the following areas:
• Self-care: Providing for and protecting oneself in an age-appropriate manner.
• Interpersonal relationships: Building and keeping good relationships with adults and other children.
• Family life: Living in a non-abusive or non-negligent family environment.
• Self-direction: Using age-appropriate self-control and judgment.
• Education: Learning social and intellectual skills from teachers and other adults and remaining involved in school.
• Risk: Must have been disabled for at least one year or judged by a qualified mental health professional to be at high risk to continue in the disability for one year or more without intervention.
• Service coordination: Must require service coordination and service planning from two or more agencies at the same time.

How can families apply for IMPACT?

A parent or any professional involved with the child or family can request help from IMPACT. Forms are available from your local IMPACT office. Because far more children have severe emotional disabilities than IMPACT can serve, the following children will receive priority:

• Children who are currently living outside their homes.
• Children with a history of placements in a hospital or treatment facility.

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Kentucky IMPACT Facts

• Kentucky IMPACT was established by legislation in 1990 and currently serves each year about 5,400 children with severe emotional disabilities and their families.
• Kentucky was one of eight states to receive Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funding from 1989 to 1994 to develop a system of care for children with severe emotional disabilities.
• Kentucky IMPACT works to improve interagency coordination, ensure financing, and develop a continuum of community-based and family-focused resources.
• Kentucky IMPACT teams work to increase and improve available services, coordinate services across agencies, reduce psychiatric hospitalization, increase community-based services, improve child and family competence and provide timely and responsive support to families.
• Kentucky IMPACT is governed by the State Interagency Council for Services to Children with an Emotional Disability and 18 Regional Interagency Councils.
• Each child in the IMPACT program has a service planning team made up of people who care the most about the child.
• Kentucky IMPACT has shown successful outcomes with substantial gains in the reduction of behavior problems, reduced utilization of psychiatric hospitals, increased placement stability and increased family social support associated with the program.
• Placement costs have been reduced by an average of $5,012 per child in the first year of their IMPACT involvement.

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