Community Service Agency

The Community Service Agency (CSA), administered by Family Service Association, is a community-based program that facilitates access to and ensures coordination of care for youth with Serious Emotional Disturbance (SED)

Our CSAs use a “wraparound” model of care to help children and families thrive in their homes and community. Our wraparound model offers a comprehensive, holistic, youth-and family-driven approach to responding when a child or young adult experiences serious mental health or behavioral challenges. This is a process used to create, put in place, and monitor an individual plan that is created specifically to address the needs of a youth and builds on the strengths of the youth, family, team, and community.

Our team of Intensive Care Coordinators and Family Partners work with youth and families to create their team, including professional and natural supports, to ensure their ideas, vision and goals are incorporated in the plan of care.

Who is eligible?

Our CSAs serve youth from birth to age 21 who have experienced Serious Emotional Disturbance (SED), meet certain medical criteria and are enrolled in MassHealth Standard, CommonHealth, or contracted commercial insurances.

Intensive Care Coordination (ICC)
Intensive Care Coordination (ICC) provides a single point of accountability for ensuring that medically necessary services are accessed, coordinated and delivered in a strength-based, individualized, family / youth-driven and ethnically, culturally, and linguistically relevant manner. Please note that an informative video about ICC appears at the bottom of this page.

ICC is a service that uses the Wraparound Care Planning process to coordinate multiple services and supports for youth with Serious Emotional Disturbance (SED). Involvement and participation in ICC are voluntary.

Intensive Care Coordinators are assigned to work with each youth and Family enrolled in Intensive Care Coordination (ICC). They assess the strengths and needs of each family and facilitate Care Planning Team meetings. The Care Coordinator is responsible for working with the youth and family to:

Complete a risk management and safety plan
Conduct a comprehensive home-based assessment of the youth's and family's strengths and needs
Assemble a care planning team of the family's preference comprised of up of formal (e.g. teachers, state agency workers, etc.) and natural supports (e.g. friends, neighbors, etc.) to help support the youth and family
Develop an Individual Care Plan (ICP) that guides the family and team in pursuing goals identified by the care planning team
Make sure services and supports identified on the ICP are in place and coordinated
Collaborate with other collaterals (emergency services, hospitals, primary care physicians, mental health providers, schools, state agencies, etc.).

Family Support and Training
Family Support and Training is a service that provides a structured, one-to-one strength-based relationship between a Family Partner and a parent/caregiver. The purpose of this service is to resolve or ameliorate the youth’s emotional and behavioral needs by improving the capacity of the parent /caregiver to parent the youth in order to improve their functioning.

Family Partners guide parents and caregivers, offering coaching as you work to meet your child’s needs. Family Partners have children of their own with special needs. Because of their “lived experience,” they understand what you and your family are going through and will share tools to help you navigate child and family services. This individual works closely with the Care Coordinator (for youth in ICC) to help the parent(s) or caregiver(s) of the youth by:

Teaching the parent/caregiver how to navigate the child-serving system
Identifying available services and supports in the community
Developing connections with self-help or support groups
Supporting and coaching the parent/caregiver in reaching goals identified on the Individual Care Plan

Community Service Agency Referral Form

*Family Support and Training is also available as a standalone service. (Intensive Care Coordination is not required).
Submit the referral form below.

Family Support & Training Referral Form

If you are interested in applying for CSA, please complete and submit the above referral form.