Editor’s note: This month we begin a series of Highlights columns that addresses four central themes in successful systems of care: family involvement, cultural competence, evidence-based practice, and sustainability. July’s article focuses on sustainability. To write it, we invited the director of a system of care program that managed to increase its state funding in an era of massive budget cuts and retrenchment. This is her story.   Background Rhode Island’s Project Hope serves youth ages 12–21 who have serious emotional disturbance and are transitioning from the Rhode Island Training School for Youth back to their communities. Project Hope is run in partnership by the children’s behavioral health and juvenile justice systems. A primary goal is to develop a single, culturally competent, community-based system of care for these youth to prevent re-offending and re-incarceration.   Outcomes guide action Project Hope was the second of two grants awarded to Rhode Island’s system of care. The first grant, Project REACH, increased the service capacity of Children’s Intensive Services programs, offering more counseling and in-home services for children with serious emotional disturbance and their families. However, in about the third or fourth year of Project REACH, we were reviewing evaluation statistics and realized that we had never received even one referral from the state’s secure correctional facility. We were shocked because we knew that many youth in that setting had mental health needs. Somehow a connection was not being made between children in the juvenile justice system and children with mental health problems. As a result of the need for collaboration, we approached juvenile corrections, and together we started a small pilot with 10 children, which quickly turned into 60 children. The initial recidivism outcomes were extremely encouraging, and we felt that a second system of care grant could help us create more widespread change. Evaluation Evaluation data have been critical to us in establishing the sustainability of the Projects, specifically Project Hope. The evaluation indicated that children, youth, and families participating in our services had good outcomes across the fields of child welfare, juvenile justice, and children’s behavioral health. From November 2001 until November 2002, using system of care principles and a team-based process, the state was able to reduce the number of out-of-state placements by 25 percent, thus reducing the excessive out-of-state placements for children and youth that have been a problem for a decade. No child or youth was returned home without services, and the state saved approximately $5 million. With respect to juvenile justice outcomes, Project Hope is seeing some of the lowest recidivism rates in the country for youth returning to the community from a secure correctional facility. Our success further strengthened the Legislature’s commitment to system of care–based approaches for reducing the restrictivness of children’s placements. In this difficult budget year, the proposed additional amount is about $750,000. Partnering and connecting resources Good evaluation is supported by our close relationship with institutions of higher education. We have higher education involved in our programs in several ways: Yale University is the evaluator for Project Hope. We offer a Child Welfare Institute at Rhode Island College, which serves as the principal pre- and post-service child welfare training setting in the state. We collaborate with the Addiction Training and Technology Transfer Center at Brown University on training initiatives and with the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Services at Brown on a postdoctoral residency program in Forensics through Project Hope. Taken together, these relationships give us the opportunity to weave system of care principles further through the university, professional, and medical communities. When people who are or will grow into positions of power understand what we do and why, this in turn supports our sustainability. In addition, the expertise gained through these partnerships allows constant sharpening of practice within the system of care, which we believe enhances outcomes for families. Family involvement Beyond actually achieving good outcomes and documenting them though careful evaluation, we have found that family involvement in lobbying for ongoing funding is critical. Every year is a new ball game. We cannot rest on our laurels or on any other portion of our anatomy. Every year, we go back to the budget office and the legislature (policymakers experience turnover, too) to remind them who we are. When we bring family members along and the legislators can put a face and a life story to the evaluation statistics, everyone sits up and takes notice. Overall, the key to sustainability is producing clear results for youth and families. These outcomes, documented by good evaluation data and satisfied family voices, are the bedrock of sustainability. To learn more about Rhode Island’s Project REACH and Project Hope, visit http://www.dcyf.state.ri.us/cbh.shtml.