The Stark County Family Council is composed of several levels of group activities all of which are directed toward providing Stark County families and children with high quality and well integrated services. Family Councils exist to streamline and coordinate existing public services for families seeking assistance for their children.
(Ohio Revised Code 121.37)
The Creative Community Options level of the Family Council is the direct service level of all the Family Council system participants. Creative Community Options (CCO) is a process created by the Family Council as a multiple systems strengths based assessment and treatment planning process for children and their families. Any case manager in any system may request a CCO meeting to develop the most creative and flexible service packages for children and families. At times CCO meetings may develop creative service plans for families and children which may require resources from the community, assistance in financing or decisions from higher level administrators in implementing service changes to adequately address the families' service needs.
The second function level of the Family Council is the ACCORD (A Creative Community Options Review Decision). The members of the ACCORD are official representatives of their respective organizations and possess clinical and administrative expertise in children's services. Family confidentiality is respected at all times and no member of the ACCORD may discuss family information outside of the ACCORD process. Family members may attend the ACCORD meeting during the time of their family's presentation. The ACCORD reviews Creative Community Options decisions, monitors treatment for Family Council youngsters, develops outcome indicators for services purchased by the Family Council, and identifies service gaps and service capacity areas for the Family Council in order to more fully meet the needs of families.
The Board of Trustees of the Family Council consists of the top executive levels of all of the systems who participate in the Family Council. These include seven systems which blend money into a resource pool to pay for services for multi-need youngsters. The core agencies who have contributed dollars are:
- Stark County Department of Human Services
- Stark County Community Mental Health Board
- Stark County Mental/Retardation and Development Disability Board
- Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services Board of Stark County
- Stark County Family Court
- Canton City Schools
- Alliance City Schools
- Fairless Local Schools
Other Board of Trustee Members are the County and City Health Departments, six (6) parents selected by the Parent Advisory Council and three (3) members selected by the Family Council membership from a broad range of community membership.
SCFC 5/95