DCFS: Foster Care
Evaluations

Division Of Family Services: Foster Care

Acentra Health is the QIO-like organization for the Arkansas Department of Human Services which provides Arkansas licensed mental health professional to do assessments of youths using the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS). This is assessment a comprehensive trauma-informed behavioral health evaluation and communication tool. These CANS assessments help decision-making to determine eligibility for placement into Arkansas’s Qualified Residential Treatment Program (QRTP). This program follows The Family First Prevention Services Act which emphasizes the importance of children growing up in families and helps ensure children are placed in the least restrictive, most family-like setting appropriate to their special needs when foster care is needed. (QRTP). Completion of the CANS is accomplished to allow for more effective communication. The CANS is designed based on communication theory rather than the psychometric theories that have influenced most measurement development. Acentra Health provides physician support to these providers.