Enrolling your Child into Step By Step Academy’s

Center Based Program

Step By Step Academy is a Mental Health agency that accesses services through a Medicaid card. If your child has Medicaid then there is no out of pocket expense to you as a family. The services we provide, Mental Health services following ABA, are completely covered.

We recommend you come in for a tour and identify if what you see is what you are really looking for. Assuming that is so, you will need to complete some paperwork to begin the intake process. SBSA does enrollment on a quarterly basis equaling four times a year. You will need to ask the Intake Specialist when the next enrollment period is and if there are openings.

There are 3 steps that need to completed to begin services at SBSA:

1. Establish funding through either the Medicaid Card, Private Insurance or Private Pay
2. Assessment and Diagnostic evaluations
3. Intake placement and paperwork

 

Step 1: Establish Funding

The paperwork for all steps can be overwhelming as we are a Medicaid provider and that is always a lot of paperwork. But we will complete it with you and if you have questions along the way, just ask. For Step 1, you will need to bring in your child’s current Medicaid card so that we can make a copy for the file and to submit to the county to request what is called a “Unique Client Identification” number (UCI). This is the billing number the state provides SBSA so that we can bill their Medicaid card directly. This does not affect the Level I waiver. You will still have complete access to your Level I dollars as we bill the Medicaid card directly for services.

In addition to bringing in the Medicaid Card, you will also need the following information to complete the forms for SBSA to submit to the county/state:

• Medicaid Card
• Social Security Number
• Total Family Income per year
• And then the basic items like address, county, etc.

If your child does not have a Medicaid Card, you will need to speak with our Parent Advocate and Administrative Director, Marla Root to discuss other funding options for your child and create your payment plan.

Please note, SBSA is an Autism Scholarship Provider. It covers the Outreach portion of our services.

Once this is complete, you will then be able to schedule your Assessment and Diagnostic evaluations. So bring your calendar!

Step 2: Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluations

The Assessment process is necessary to confirm diagnosis, and determine whether or not SBSA is an appropriate option for your child. Some factors include their diagnosis and behavioral needs. For example, if your child has extreme aggressive or self-injurious behaviors we will need to determine if they require more than a 1:1 ratio environment.

If your child already has a diagnosis, then the diagnosis needs to be confirmed by one of our own psychologist as required by the Ohio Department of Mental Health. If your child has received a full evaluation with another psychologist within the last 12 months, then we should be able to use their data from the cognitive and behavioral tests they completed instead of repeating the same instruments. If the evaluation is more than 12 months old, then our psychologists will likely recommend a full testing protocol to establish new baseline data in addition to the basic assessment information they collect such as their history of development.

This process can take as little as 1 meeting for about 1.5 hours to a few meetings around 1-2 hours each to complete all of the testing protocol. We schedule appointments between the hours or 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. to be as convenient to you as possible.

To complete the assessment process, your child will need to come in for a specific skills assessment with our Clinic Director, Michele Murphy, and/or our Clinic Supervisor, Monisha Acharya-Lammert. Our intake department will schedule all of this with you so you don’t need to contact multiple people to schedule. SBSA incorporates the ABLLS (Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills) which is conducted by either of these clinical team members. This provides a baseline of skill ability for your children and allows us to identify specific treatment programs we may begin with following the psychologist’s recommendations from their Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation. The ABLLS will be used by the clinical team throughout your child’s treatment with SBSA. It will allow us to graph progress over time and identify other needs as they come up.  This initial assessment can typically be completed in 30-60 minutes. Once your child begins treatment services on a daily basis, it may take 3-4 weeks to actually complete the ABLLS entirely.

During this process, be sure to share specific communication and behavioral needs of your children. For example, does your child use sign language, augmentative communication devices or are they vocal in their communication. Perhaps your child does not have any communication skills at all and that is a priority of need. Does your child engage in aggressive behavior? If so, towards other adults, other children or to him/herself?

Other good information that will be covered includes medication, toileting needs, diets and more. For example, is your child on any medication? If so, will SBSA need to administer any medication during hours the child is with us? Is your child toilet trained? If not, that is okay. We will evaluate their readiness skills after their first quarter with SBSA. Toileting independence is a priority at our center; it’s just not something you should start with. Then diets, is your child allergic to anything, etc. All of this information is helpful to know in the assessment process.

Step 3: Intake Placement and Paperwork

The third and final step is to complete the intake placement and  paperwork. Once the psychologists begin their assessment and testing, they can usually determine rather quickly whether or not SBSA is an appropriate placement. If they do, they will give the recommendation for the clinical team to complete the ABLLS as described above. Once both of these assessments are complete, the clinical team (including Psychologist, Clinic Director and Clinic Supervisor) meet to identify our team placement recommendation for your child.

Along with identifying team placement for each child, the clinical team identifies initial treatment programs to implement during the first 30 days of treatment. These goals are identified through the recommendations of the psychologist, the results of the ABLLS assessment, and the priorities and interests you share with the psychologist during the assessment process. Again, these programs are a preliminary guide for us so we have a place to begin on their first day. The final recommendations for the annual treatment plan will be scheduled to review with you towards the end of their first 30 day period.

And finally, you will meet with our intake coordinator to complete all other paperwork required for the permanent file and with your supervisory clinical team to meet them formally.

Upon completion of Intake Paperwork

Once you have finished the intake paperwork and are assigned a start date, you will receive introduction letters from each of the team leaders of your child’s program including one from Executive Director Michele LaMarche, Clinic Director Michele Murphy, Clinic Supervisor Monisha Acharya-Lammert and your identified Program Supervisor. In addition, you will begin to receive information from our marketing and fundraising department, our parent resource and volunteer coordinator and our outreach department to determine if you are interested in limited home support after hours and on weekends.. We believe there is a lot to digest in this process and it’s good to have information come to you in writing so you can file it away for reference later on as it is almost impossible to remember all of the things you will learn during the intake process.