Software Donations Facilitate Counseling for At-Risk Kids
Counseling4Kids (C4K) provides mental health services to children in the Los Angeles County foster care system. C4K has four programs and 70 therapists working with over 800 children each year, rendering more than 30,000 hours of treatment.
C4K's services include initial mental health assessment, in-home individual therapy with the child, plus family therapy with foster parents, relatives, caregivers, and biological parents. They provide case management, medication evaluation and support, psychological and neuropsychological evaluation, reunification services and permanency planning, 24/7 crisis coverage, and linkage to additional community resources.
C4K has leveraged several Microsoft technologies to achieve its mission. It deployed Microsoft's Access database to help manage its multiple programs, increasing client numbers, and ever-changing county and state quality assurance requirements.The Access database was created to capture client referrals, client demographic information, treatment history, diagnosis changes, clinician information, an services received, and subsequent payment information. Quality assurance notes ensured that treatment reviews were being performed regularly. C4K also deploys Microsoft Excel worksheets to create charts and then present them in a Microsoft Word document that summarizes the client's progress.
Using Microsoft Office products has not only decreased the time it takes to create the reports, but therapists also find the new format more effective for determining client progress.
