State Child Welfare Policy Guide: Part of the Policy Matters Series

9.1 Capacity for developing comprehensive, community-based services

To be active and effective partners in the healthy development of the community’s children, local collaborative organizations require investment in administration, technical assistance and dedicated funding for services identified by local collaboratives, including:

·         tools to identify needed resources (such as community mapping, resident surveys, and self-assessments),

·         assistance in developing community mobilization and engagement strategies,

·         leadership development capacity, and

·         funding for administration and services.

Multi-year trend data and anecdotal evidence suggest that community based decision-making partnerships can contribute to the improved well-being of children, families and communities [i] . However, research on the efficacy of community collaboratives found that providing technical assistance to the local communities is vital to the success of the collaboration in its effort to improve child well-being. [ii]

Over the past twenty years, many local collaboratives have developed that focused on a broad agenda of child well-being while also creating resources that enhanced the service delivery system of child welfare agencies. In 1997 West Virginia supported the ability of families to care for their children through the development of Family Resource Networks (FRNs). The early FRNs were created as a statewide network of community organizations that were composed of residents and providers and served as the coordinating and planning bodies for their communities' service system for children and families. The FRNs conducted needs assessments, developed local plans, identified system improvements, and evaluated results. The state established a cross-agency fund to support the FRNs that began with Medicaid and AFDC, in addition to redirected state funds. [iii] Since 1994 t he Oregon Commission on Children and Families has continuously sponsored local, coordinated, comprehensive services for children and families through a system of local collaboratives supported by state general funds.

The Family Connection Partnership in Georgia is a nonprofit organization that supports a network of 159 collaboratives throughout the state. The collaboratives are public-private partnerships made up of agency and community representatives that develop, fund, implement and evaluate a comprehensive interagency plan for services to children.  The Family Connection Partnership provides technical assistance to the local collaboratives on results-based facilitation, new coordinator training, cultural responsiveness, board development, strategy development, contract reporting, financial reporting, finance, funding, evaluation, plan review, family engagement and collaboration. In 2006 they implemented Family Connection Standards for Excellence in Collaboration and Community Decision-Making establishing a system of assessment and standards for the performance of the collaboratives.

While financing the services planned or coordinated by the collaboratives is essential to the development of community resources for child welfare agencies and families to access, it is important to note that research on effective community decision-making found that influencing funding was more important to success than control of the funding [iv] . In either case, identifying dedicated funding streams has proven challenging due to the categorical nature and limited availability of financial support. As far back as 1992 it was noted that the term “categorical funding” had become “synonymous with all that is wrong with current social services” [v]   because the result of such targeted funding was a fragmentation of services. Since the 1980’s there have been efforts to decategorize funding streams in order to serve children and families more holistically.  The most notable effort is the Child Welfare Decategorization Project in Iowa (also known as “DeCat”), which began with 30 funding streams brought together at the county level. Over the years the money has decreased and become more restrictive, but the local boards continue to plan, coordinate and distribute several funding sources including federal juvenile justice, TANF, and Promoting Safe and Stable Families dollars. [vi] Another approach is in Virginia where the pooling of eight funding streams was legislatively mandated through the “Comprehensive Services Act for At-Risk Youth and Families”. These funds are allocated to the localities through local interagency teams to coordinate services for high-risk youth .[vii]

Policy Options:  States can authorize and fund 1, 2, or 3 of the following capacity-building supports:

·     Multi-year financial investment in administration

·     Technical assistance

·     Dedicated funding for services identified by local collaboratives