Since 1995, the Health Care Reform Tracking Project has been tracking publicly financed managed care initiatives and their impact on children with mental health and substance abuse disorders and their families.

This paper describes seven managed care approaches that were identified through the Health Care Reform Tracking Project as incorporating features that hold promise for effective service delivery for children and adolescents with behavioral health treatment needs and their families. The approaches include carve-outs and integrated designs of three statewide efforts serving the total population, and four local efforts serving subsets of the population in Delaware, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Wisconsin. The paper also summarizes common challenges and characteristics among the programs, as well as a list of resources.