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Michigan

Demonstration Type:	Intensive Services
Approval Date:	March 31, 2006
Expected Implementation Date:	Terminated Prior to Implementation on June 29, 2007

Background

Michigan originally planned to implement its intensive services demonstration no later than April 1, 2007. The State later postponed and eventually terminated its waiver prior to implementation due to delays in developing a final service model, combined with shortages of resources and staff needed to ensure effective implementation.

Target Population

As originally approved, Michigan's intensive services demonstration targeted title IV-E-eligible and non-IV-E-eligible children who were in or at risk of entering out-of-home placement in a relative or non-relative foster home or congregate care setting, or whose adoption arrangements had been disrupted or were at risk of dissolution. The State later proposed to narrow the target population to title IV-E-eligible children placed in long-term, high-cost foster care.

Intervention

Through its intensive services waiver, the State sought to implement a focused treatment system to ensure that children and families were assessed for and received needed services in a consistent and appropriate manner. The intervention involved delegating as much direct authority as possible to caseworkers to use flexible IV-E dollars to manage and provide services for long-term/high-cost foster care cases.

A second component was to involve the implementation of a "Model Integrity Management" (MIM) quality assurance system overseen by a team of child welfare supervisors and managers. Specific responsibilities of the MIM Team were to include (1) establishing clear practice guidelines for the delivery of enhanced waiver services; (2) reviewing case management and service delivery practices; and (3) implementing practice, procedural, or policy changes to maximize fidelity to the waiver's service model.

Finally, the State sought to create a "Data Model" to systematically target cases for enhanced waiver services. Through the use of structured, longitudinal, administrative data sets and established rules for targeting long-term/high-cost cases, the Data Model was to allow the MIM Team to identify eligible cases and delegate them to case managers in an efficient and effective manner.

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