FASD/RPTC Home and Community Demonstration Project

What is the FASD-RPTC Demonstration Project?

Department one of 10 selected to develop national model

More home and community based alternatives to residential psychiatric treatment needed nationwide

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services awarded $15.4 million to the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services to establish home and community-based services as alternatives to residential treatment for 14 to 21 year olds with Severe Emotional Disturbance and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. The five-year Medicaid Demonstration Project will fund and track treatment of youth in the program. Historically, treatment programs have been less successful for this demographic because of the challenges in diagnosing and appropriately serving children with these disorders. Results of the project will be used to build a national treatment model.

Alaska was selected for the funding because of the unique target population to be served and the original treatment intervention model envisioned by a department workgroup.

“This award is recognition of Alaska’s continuing efforts to investigate new options to keep youth in a culturally appropriate environment closer to home,” Acting Program Director Michelle Lyons-Brown said. “The affected age group is transitioning from youth to adulthood which requires extra assistance as they move into more adult independent living arrangements.”

The funding will be used for treatment and intervention case managers; training and consultation services for families and providers; continuous evaluation; and other specialized services. The Alaska treatment model follows these guidelines: modeling, to learn desired behaviors; mentoring, to reinforce consistency in desired behaviors; and monitoring, to continually collect and evaluate data to validate that this “3M” model is a success and should be duplicated.