The bulk of our referrals are made by agencies prior to any determination of potential RTC or out-of-home placement. The LCT functions as a true prevention initiative in that most of our agency partners now recognize that many families can be served in their communities if they have an opportunity to meet with the CRICT team. Due to this approach, numbers for youth diverted from RTC will always appear low as these cases are not presented to the group for review or approval of a potential RTC placement.
No agency in our network brings out-of-state placement cases to our LCT. We have not been able to determine if cases referred are being explored for potential OOS RTC placement but are not indicated as such in their referral materials, or if numbers of OOS RTC placements are simply lower overall for our partner agencies.