Christopher Strnad

Rhode Island's Children's Behavioral Health Consent Decree Implementation Plan serves as a roadmap to meet the requirements of a Consent Decree and transform its children's behavioral health system. The plan focuses on establishing a coordinated, statewide approach for identifying children in the Focus Population and connecting them to intensive home- and community-based behavioral health services. Key priorities include developing a Single Point of Access, implementing Intensive Care Coordination, expanding accessible services, ensuring data-driven accountability, fostering family and youth voice, and strengthening cross-system partnerships. The ultimate goal is to reduce unnecessary psychiatric hospitalizations, shorten their duration, minimize emergency department visits for behavioral health conditions, and ensure that children receive timely, individualized, and effective care in the least restrictive, most integrated settings possible, with full implementation targeted by 2030.

The State of Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth & Families' strategic plan aims to achieve positive outcomes for children and families, structured around the fundamental pillars of Prevention, Accountability, Collaboration, and Engagement (P.A.C.E.). Its 2026 priorities focus on Well-being, Racial Justice, Transition, Workforce, and Continuum of Care, with the intention to safely decrease out-of-home removals, reduce foster care, improve permanency, strengthen community partnerships, engage youth and families, and ensure successful transitions for marginalized youth through a supportive workforce.

The 2025-2030 Strategic Plan for the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth & Families aims to mobilize resources to create an integrated statewide program ensuring children and families reach their full potential. Anchored in four core pillars – Prevention, Accountability, Collaboration, and Engagement (P.A.C.E.) – the plan focuses on reimagining the system of care by emphasizing prevention, expanding family-centered placements, safely reducing the use of congregate settings, and promoting stability through high-quality, responsive services. The overall vision is to foster a supportive, resilient, and vibrant community where every child can thrive.

This strategic plan, titled "Setting P.A.C.E. For Rhode Island Children, Youth and Families," outlines five core priorities to advance the system for children, youth, and families. Developed in 2024, the plan focuses on establishing a proactive child and family well-being system, promoting racial justice by eliminating systemic racism, supporting foster youth in their transition to adulthood, fostering a well-resourced and supportive workforce, and building a robust continuum of care. The overall objective is to ensure timely access to appropriate services and supports, particularly by leveraging the Children's Behavioral Health Consent Decree, and to strengthen the continuum of care and uplift the voices of those served, with a sustained focus through 2026.

This P.A.C.E. Scorecard for Quarter 1 2025 outlines the strategic direction for the Department of Children, Youth & Families, built upon four fundamental pillars: Prevention, Accountability, Collaboration, and Engagement. Key objectives include safely reducing out-of-home removals and the number of children in foster care, improving permanency for all children, delivering excellent services through investments and a focus on racial justice, expanding family-based placements, and increasing youth, family, and caregiver engagement. The plan emphasizes transparency, timely interventions, and integrating these principles into both short-term and long-term goals for sustainable improvements in child and family well-being.