There have been several questions regarding High Needs Characteristics and the MO Invoice for programs in the state of Missouri.
To clarify, there are some differences in the High Needs definitions for PAT and DESE. DESE will count any family with one or more stress as a high needs family. PAT will count families with 2 or more as high needs. Also, DESE will count Single Parent and ESL as high needs characteristics and PAT does not. This is why these 2 characteristics are not listed in the top box under Family Experiences”, but they under the “Other Family Characteristics”.
These high needs characteristics will count towards high needs on your MO Invoice report. When you run the MO Invoice report, you will see that ESL and Single Parent are listed in the high needs sections and will count towards high needs.
On the Family Demographic Data page, the “stressors” at the listed at the top will reflect the number of DESE high needs.
The MO Invoice is the only place where these are counted towards high needs. Every other report you run in Visit Tracker will show your high needs families based on PAT definitions.
Hopefully, this will provide some clarification, but if you have any additional questions, please let us know!