2009 Annual Summary
Urban Behavioral HealthCare Institute, LLC
Accredited by the Council on Accreditation
“Our mission is to create positive social change by providing innovative
interventions
that strengthen families”
INTRODUCTION
Urban Behavioral has worked this last year to place children in permanent forever families. The Licensing Unit has flourished this last year with the recruitment and licensing of 20 homes. New foster parents, like the *Bloom family have joined us in providing quality care to the children we serve. The Bloom’s are a two parent family who want to contribute to their community by serving youth in foster care. Recently, a new foster parent, *Ms. Sweeten, a single woman with no children of her own, has come aboard by taking on the challenge of fostering a child with severe developmental disabilities. Foster parents are stepping forward from every sector of our community to help serve. Urban Behavioral is proud to be a part of an effort that is bringing new energy to foster parenting.
SERVICES
Urban Behavioral Healthcare Institute provides quality behavioral healthcare programs and services that address the unique needs of children, adults and families residing in urban settings. UBH Institute offers a variety of programs and psychological services to residents and organizations in the Greater St. Louis area. Its develop-ment has lead to the establishment of the following services: Consultation, Program Development, Psychological Services, Foster Care Case Management and the recruitment, training and licensing of foster homes to service the children that we serve.
In the area of foster care, our leadership in finding permanency via reunification, adoption, and guardianship has continued this year. We anticipated that during 2009 we will have found permanent homes for over 40% of the youth we serve. Permanency is being achieved because of the clinical case management approach of Urban Behavioral. The focus of case management has always been on allowing the clinical and social needs of the youth drive the selection of services, and determine the usefulness of outcomes. We are continuing to develop the principles of clinical case management and are achieving impressive results. For example, this year 100%
of youth who were eligible for high school graduation will receive high school diplomas. Of the youth graduating, 83% are moving on towards college or vocational school. We are very proud of the achievement of these students who have pushed to succeed no matter what the odds. We thank and acknowledge the contribution
of foster parents and service providers who have supported these students.
Psychological services are provided by Urban Behavioral whose mental health services were accredited, along with the entire agency, by the Council on Accreditation in 2007. During the past year, Urban Behavioral continues to provide psychological assessment, psychotherapy, and family counseling.
An additional service offered by Urban Behavioral is a foster parent support group. Our Foster Parents serve as a bridge between temporary and permanent family living. Foster parents nurture children through the transient and difficult times. In our continuous efforts toward providing support to our current and perspective foster parents, UBHI has developed a Foster Parent Support Group. The support group will be a way for foster parents to meet and discuss concerns, help each other to resolve problems and to offer valuable resources. The meetings will take place every other month. The meetings will not only serve as a means of support, but also as a way to receive additional training on various topics. Guest speakers, with various areas of expertise are invited to the meetings to address issues that are critical to the success of foster parents.
THE FUTURE
The forecast for Urban Behavioral’s future is bright. We are presently seeking to expand services. Particularly, we would like to expand mentoring services to more of the youth we serve, and possibly share mentoring services with other case management providers. Limited funds are currently available for mentoring to a small portion of youth. Expansion requires seeking funds to cover additional costs. We are now in the process of seeking ways to cover these costs. Stay tuned by becoming a recipient of our newsletter developed by the Licensing Unit. Please contact us at (314) 577-5000 to receive the latest newsletter.
