The Ohio Department of Medicaid (ODM) has announced September 2021 Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) training dates for CANS assessors. ODM is in the process of rolling out a new program, OhioRISE (Resilience through Integrated Systems and Excellence), a specialized managed care program for youth with complex behavioral health and multi-system needs. 

With leadership from Governor Mike DeWine’s Children’s Initiative, ODM--in partnership with state child-serving agencies and the Praed Foundation--created an Ohio-specific Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) tool and Decision Support Model that all Ohio CANS assessors will be expected to utilize. 

The CANS is a support tool in the clinical decision-making process to determine eligibility into OhioRISE and level of care and service planning. This assessment tool has been developed for broad application across multiple systems, to ensure youth only need to go through one assessment across multiple providers. It gathers all dimensions of the youth and family story to determine needs and strengths, and integrates multiple storytellers capturing the voice of the youth and family to produce a full consensus-based assessment. The CANS is updated routinely over the course of treatment to continue ongoing care planning.

ODM encourages health care providers and other professionals to take advantage of this training opportunity in the new CANS assessment tool. Costs are covered by the state. Additional training dates will be announced prior to each month. 

Please refer to the CANS Training FAQCANS Training Registration Guide, and CANS Training Enrollment Guide for information on how to register and enroll for the CANS training. Here are the September dates and times.

For questions or concerns related to course registration or enrollment please contact [email protected]. For any additional questions, please contact [email protected].