June 2007

What are effective strategies for engaging child welfare in a system of care initiative?

Child welfare agencies must demonstrate continuous improvement in their ability to promote the safety, permanency and well-being of children and families that come to their attention. They are under constant public scrutiny to protect children from harm, reduce the time to identify a permanent placement, and promote the health and welfare of children and youth they serve. They cannot do it alone. To promote positive outcomes for children and families, child welfare agencies are under increasing pressure to engage other stakeholders, including families, youth and other service providers in working collaboratively toward common goals. Child welfare agencies share many of the same goals of systems of care communities.

• Child-driven – provide a broad array of individualized services and supports to support the strengths and address the needs of the child
• Family-centered – support and involve families in caring for children - recognizing that in most cases, families are the most important support for their children
• Community-based – serve children and families through community-based programs and remove them from their home only if absolutely necessary
• Interagency Collaboration – work together with agencies and programs to children with multiple service needs, as they all have a role to play in protecting children

Efforts to actively invite, involve and engage child welfare service systems in your system of care initiative will be most effective if you can identify shared values, common goals and objectives. To increase your chances of success, consider the following five steps:

1. Get to know the child welfare agency in your community.
   What exactly do they do? What services do they provide? What are their federal mandates and state policies for responding to reports of suspected child abuse/neglect? What are their policies and procedures for preventing and responding to abuse allegations? What is the organizational structure of their agency? What are their priorities?
2. Appreciate the unique strengths, skills and resources that child welfare personnel bring to the work.
   Child welfare workers have to respond to complex crisis situations and make critical decisions about the risk and safety of the child. In a short time they are required to develop a plan which considers the unique strengths and needs of the child and family and coordinate resources and services to ensure safe and stable living arrangements. Understanding the perspectives, challenges, and culture of your child welfare agency is critical in order to figure out how best to partner with them.
3. Explore the priorities and challenges that your State or local child welfare agency is facing.
   What do you (the SOC Initiative) have to offer the child welfare agency and their staff that will address their current challenges and priorities? What can you provide that will ease the daily workload of the staff or help them achieve their desired outcomes with the children, youth and families they serve? You may want to do some research to consider the following:
   • If your state or county has a child welfare consent decree, what are the conditions and requirements for resolution?
   • What does the State Program Improvement Plan indicate will be the plan for improving the quality of services for children and families?
   • What are the results of the Child and Family Service Reviews (CFSRs)? Sanctions on federal funding for child welfare services may be imposed if the State is not in compliance with certain federal indicators of safety, permanency and well-being of the children served.
4. Evaluate the interagency historical context and current environment for collaboration.
   What is the local history of the child welfare system partnering with the mental health system? Courts? Tribal community? Juvenile justice system? Education system? What is the current culture surrounding interagency collaboration and partnership with the child welfare agency? Do the leaders in child welfare in your community support and promote interagency collaboration? Are formal supports such as MOUs in place? If interagency relationships are "stuck" or strained, would a mediator be helpful to facilitate communication and resolve conflicts?
5. Assess the need for and access to mental health services for children and families in the child welfare system.
   What are the unique behavioral health needs of children and youth in child welfare? How are these needs currently being met? How are the needs of culturally diverse clients being addressed? Where are the gaps in service? How can the SOC Initiative partner with Child Welfare to address these gaps?
   Are children, youth, parents, kinship caregivers and resource families able to access mental health services and participate in developing a case plan that they can successfully achieve? Can mental health services support child welfare in keeping families together when appropriate, and help foster, adoptive and kin families better understand and support the children they are caring for? Research indicates that when children and their families receive mental health services, the foster care placement is less likely to be disrupted resulting in multiple placements, and reunification or other permanent arrangement is more likely to be successful.

In summary, successful engagement of the child welfare agency in the system of care requires their active participation in establishing shared goals/outcomes for the identified target population and then in planning, implementing and evaluating effective intervention strategies. The SOC Initiative needs to value and incorporate child welfare perspectives and contributions as collaborative relationships are most successful when built on a foundation of mutual trust and respect. Patience and persistence are required in order for your child welfare colleagues to develop confidence that their service needs and challenges can be successfully addressed though the System of Care initiative.

Developed in partnership with Rich Weisgal, Program Manager, Children's System of Care Contra Costa County Mental Health.