June 2006

Developing Family Involvement Infrastructures in Systems of Care:
Discussion Questions

Many communities struggle with creating truly family-driven systems of care. The key to success is an infrastructure that integrates families into every aspect of the system, from the core team to governance, service delivery, social marketing, and evaluation. But how do you get there? The questions below may help guide your discussions as you plan to develop or expand family involvement in each key infrastructure area.

Family involvement on the Administrative Core Team

1. Has your community dedicated at least one full-time equivalent family involvement administrative leadership position to your system of care?

2. Has your system of care leadership examined the pros and cons of hiring family involvement administrative staff within a government agency, local community provider organization and/or family-run organization?

3. Do the family involvement administrative staff participate in all system of care administrative meetings and receive access to the same level of information as all other lead administrative staff?

4. Does your family involvement administrative staff work with the administrative team and system of care partners to conduct a needs assessment process with families and family organizations representing the community and population of focus to learn about their strengths, needs, contributions and capacities?

5. Does your family involvement administrative staff work with the administrative team and system of care governance board to help ensure that there is funding in the overall system of care budget dedicated to fully involving families and family organizations in all system of care governance boards, subcommittees, service delivery, peer support and education, training and technical assistance, evaluation and other system of care activities?

6. Does your family involvement administrative staff help to ensure that there is ongoing training and technical assistance and resources available to support the ongoing development of system of care family leadership and empowerment?

7. Has your system of care administrative team discussed the new definition of family driven and come to a consensus to what family driven means to the team? Is there joint ownership and accountability among all administrative team members for becoming family driven?

Family Involvement on the System of Care Governance Board and Subcommittees

1. Has your system of care governance board discussed the definition of family driven and what that means to your system of care initiative? Are family members representing the population of focus involved in the discussions?

2. Has your system of care governance board defined your membership and determined the ratio of families that will be recruited to participate?

3. Are you including diverse families that represent both the community and the population of focus on your system of care governance board and subcommittees? What is your process for recruiting these families?

4. Has your system of care governance board invested in participant supports such as child care, transportation, meals, stipends, etc, so that families can be successfully involved?

5. Has your system of care governance board discussed strategies to ensure that families have access to information to make informed decisions in regards to policy and oversight of your system of care?

6. Does your system of care governance board work in partnership with family and youth advisory boards? What are the lines of communication and partnership between these advisory boards and your system of care governance board?

Family Involvement in Service Delivery Model and as Natural Supports

1. Has your system of care examined your service delivery model for hiring diverse families to work directly with families and in partnership with other service providers? What do these new roles for families look like?

2. How has your system of care community planned to develop or partner with local and statewide family organizations representing the population of focus?

3. Has your system of care looked at the pros and cons of hiring families working in service delivery within family organizations or provider organizations?

4. Does your system of care community provide opportunities for families to come together to develop a peer support network? Is your system of care community working in partnership with family organizations to help support this process?

5. Has your system of care community, in partnership with families, discussed the hiring of families and family organizations? What are the investments and overall resources, outside of Center for Mental Health Services Federal grant funds, which are dedicated to involving families at the level of service delivery and natural supports?

Family Involvement across other Key Areas such as Social Marketing and Communications, Training and Technical Assistance, Evaluation and Sustainability

1. Does your system of care community recruit families to participate in all system of care activities? Are families sitting on subcommittees examining key areas of system of care implementation? Are families provided participant supports to support their involvement?

2. Are families and family organizations partners in raising public awareness, co-presenting as trainers, conducting and analyzing data, and working together on policy to sustain and further develop your system of care?

3. Does your system of care community have an overall plan for involving families in all activities? Does your system of care community evaluate and measure overall family involvement? Does your system of care community measure the outcomes of involving families?

Use these questions as a jumping-off point for discussions specific to your own community’s system of care. What other key areas need to be addressed in order to truly integrate families into decision-making, service-delivery and outreach? Good luck!