ICM Children & Family Program The ICM Children & Family program provides clinical case management services to families with one or more seriously emotionally disturbed child or adolescent. The intensive case manager will meet with the clients in their natural setting – home, school, or community, to develop and coordinate the implementation of a service plan that addresses the needs of the child or adolescent in the areas of mental health care, physical health care, family, education, leisure and environment. The purpose of this intensive, 24 hour per day, seven day per week service is to insure that the needs of this population group are served in the least restrictive setting. To this end, particular emphasis will be on reducing the number of inpatient admissions experienced by these clients. If the child or adolescent does indeed require hospitalization, efforts will be made to facilitate the earliest possible discharge. ICM Children & Family Client The ICM program was designed to serve the chronically mentally ill population. The concept of chronicity, however, is a difficult one to apply to the children and youth population. Chronic or long-term emotional problems are best viewed as severe disturbance in growth requiring extra help in habilitation. The “severely emotionally disturbed” better describes this population since it conveys both the seriousness of the condition and the high degree of service that the children and youth require. The degree of disability then becomes the parameter by which seriousness or severity is defined.