Description of the Intense Service Level
The Intense Service Level consists of a high degree of structure, preferably in a family, to limit the child’s access to environments as necessary to protect the child. The caregivers have specialized training to provide intense therapeutic and habilitative supports and interventions with limited outside access, including:
- 24-hour supervision to ensure the child’s safety and sense of security, which includes frequent one-to-one monitoring with the ability to provide immediate on-site response.
- Affection, reassurance, and involvement in therapeutic activities appropriate to the child’s age and development to promote the child’s well-being;
- Contact, in a manner that is deemed in the best interest of the child, with family members and other persons significant to the child, to maintain a sense of identity and culture;
- Therapeutic, habilitative, and medical intervention and guidance that is frequently scheduled and professionally designed and supervised to help the child attain functioning more appropriate to the child’s age and development; and
- Consistent and frequent attention, direction, and assistance to help the child attain stabilization and connect appropriately with the child’s environment.
In addition to the description in subsection (a) of this section, a child with developmental delays or mental retardation needs professionally directed, designed and monitored interventions to enhance mobility, communication, sensory, motor, and cognitive development, and self-help skills.
(c) In addition to the description in subsection (a) of this section, a child with primary medical or habilitative needs requires frequent and consistent interventions. The child may be dependent on people or technology for accommodation and require interventions designed, monitored, or approved by an appropriately constituted interdisciplinary team.
Characteristics of a child that needs Intense Services
A child needing intense services has severe problems in one or more areas of functioning that present an imminent and critical danger of harm to self or others. The youth needing intense services may include:
- a child whose characteristics include one or more of the following:
- Extreme physical aggression that causes harm;
- Recurring major self-injurious actions to include serious suicide attempts;
- Other difficulties that present a critical risk of harm to self or others; and
- Severely impaired reality testing, communication skills, cognitive, affect, or personal hygiene.
- A child who abuses alcohol, drugs, or other conscious-altering substances whose characteristics include a primary diagnosis of substance dependency in addition to being extremely aggressive or self-destructive to the point of causing harm.
- A child with developmental delays or mental retardation whose characteristics include one or more of the following:
- Impairments so severe in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive skills that the child’s ability to actively participate in the program is limited and requires constant one-to-one supervision for the safety of self or others; and
- A consistent inability to cooperate in self-care while requiring constant one-toone supervision for the safety of self or others.
- A child with primary medical or habilitative needs that present an imminent and critical medical risk whose characteristics include one or more of the following:
- Frequent acute exacerbations and chronic, intensive interventions in relation to the diagnosed medical condition;
- Inability to perform daily living or self-care skills; and
- 24-hour on-site, medical supervision to sustain life support.