National Standards for Systems of Care for Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs, Version 2.0

Children and youth with special health care needs and their families typically receive services and supports from multiple systems – health care, public health, education, mental health, social services, respite and more. Within any one of these systems, children may be served by multiple providers and community-based systems. There is no doubt that the need for services and supports presents significant challenges for developing comprehensive systems of care among health care and other child-serving systems.

In 2012, experts from around the country joined forces to build on decades of previous work and develop  consensus standards for improving systems of care that serve children and youth with special health care needs. The Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs, in partnership with the National Academy for State Health Policy, has released a newly updated version of those standards that sets the core components for the structure and process of effective systems of care while streamlining content for easier use by states and stakeholders. The work was supported by the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health.

Watch a two-minute video on how to use the Standards.

The earlier version of the standards can be found here.