Trade Show: Overview of National Activities

Presenters: Jim Fong and Len Kruszecki

The Casey Foundation with support of the Rockefeller Foundation commissioned a study to find best practices in integrated services around the country. Ideally, they hoped to learn for whom does an integrated services approach work and what kind of a difference does it make.

They learned that “service integration” means different things to different people and in different communities.

The “pyramid” produced by the researcher illustrates various levels or perspectives that people can take. One important lesson is that you cannot work at all the levels at once. Start with something manageable and work from there.

Around the country, there are a few big issues that can be observed in many communities. One big issue is to focus on integrating services by creating cross-agency teams to provide services to families. Collocation is another big issue in many areas. Once you co-locate, it's hard to get out of it. Co-location tends to lead to some service integration, although it is not automatic. Another big issue is governance. The best examples we've seen are county-based, in which one administrator is responsible for integrated services throughout the county. This method is not a panacea—the quality of leadership is essential. Where leadership is shared, it is important to parcel out who will be responsible for which decisions.

Experimentation with integrated services is a national movement. Len is working with eight counties in northern California. Among these counties are some of the best and worst examples of integrated services initiatives. San Mateo is characteristic of an excellent example. In the best programs, people who receive services also are enabled to give back to the community.

There are characteristics of good collaboration but there are no cookie cutters. A very diverse community has different needs than a more homogeneous community.

Most communities employ some combination of the strategies. We need systems change, and there is a real movement towards change in the government agencies. These are painful processes to co-locate, job share, or to create service-area teams. Nonprofits then also become engaged in this arena. For example, United Way has a major role to play in service integration.

In Fremont, CA, the city was the driver, which is unusual. There are now 25 agencies co-located. State-city-county and nonprofits co-located in a strip mall. Fremont has the biggest Afghan population in the U.S. The nonprofit agency that serves that population is co-located with the government agencies.

Interagency teams for families are common in the best programs. Families' problems are integrated; therefore solutions need to be integrated as well. The family needs to be in charge of the process. It is all based on communication.