COSY’s mission is to plan, develop, and facilitate an effective continuum of support for Beaufort County youth and families by eliminating barriers to service, advocating for family preservation, and promoting local systems of care.

Our vision is that all Beaufort County youth and their families in need of coordinated services will receive local, family-centered care in the least restrictive setting possible. 

---

COSY exists to promote the continued development and implementation of a process for collaborative, local planning and resource management on behalf of Beaufort County youth, birth through age twenty-one (21), who are receiving or potentially needing residential therapeutic services. A number of Beaufort County agencies and organizations have formed a partnership, the Collaborative Organization of Services for Youth (COSY), under the auspices of County Council of Beaufort County.

COSY seeks to limit the need of Beaufort County youth for out-of-county residential therapeutic services by:

• providing effective, alternative services locally;
• transitioning back to Beaufort County those youth already placed in out¬of-county therapeutic environments when their needs can be appropriately addressed locally;
• providing for individualized service planning, monitoring and funding for these youth in a cost-effective manner, and;
• aiding in the prevention of youth entering the system through the design and coordination of prevention programs and activities and the provision of resource referral services. 

COSY was founded on the idea that local community professionals could provide better therapeutic service coordination by being more family-centered, minimizing family disruption and reducing the cost of services. COSY is made up of local professionals with a vested interest in the welfare of our community. By addressing the needs of our children and families, we can prevent or minimize further crisis in the future.

---

How It Works:

Any child residing in Beaufort County between the ages of birth and 21 who is need of or receiving therapeutic treatment, can receive COSY coordinated assistance. The COSY Service Planning Team, which consists of state agency partners and direct service providers, meets with families weekly to develop coordinated treatment plans on behalf of Beaufort County children. In addition to improved service to the child and family, cost sharing, maximizing the use of resources and improved interagency cooperation are all benefits of the COSY process.

Any COSY partner agency can submit a client referral after receiving permission from the child's legal guardian. COSY partner agencies work with families individually until circumstances require that additional COSY partners become involved. (For example, a family may have a child struggling with a mental illness such as ADHD. The child may be working with the Department of Mental Health and the Beaufort County School district. However, the child has also been smoking marijuana as a coping mechanism for their ADHD and, in order to pay for the marijuana, has begun shoplifting. At this point, now the number of agencies involved has expanded to include the Dept. of Juvenile Justice and the Beaufort County Alcohol and Drug Abuse Department. Additionally, the family may also be receiving counseling from a private provider.) Expanding the number of partners and agencies involved in each individual case increases the complexity of the situation and indicates a need for coordination. Thus, a referral is generated to begin the COSY process.

COSY is committed to continuing to provide the forum through which a cross-section of agencies, service providers and citizens join in a community-wide effort to deliver services effectively to meet the needs of our families and children. COSY will continue its efforts to collaborate with other youth-serving organizations united to serve the youth of our community.

---