Linking Systems of Care For Children and Youth

The Vision 21 Initiative began with the first comprehensive assessment of the victim assistance field in nearly 15 years. The goal of the Vision 21 Initiative was to alter permanently the treatment of crime victims in America. To that end, five organizations collectively examined the current framework of the victim assistance field in the United States. Four of the organizations conducted thorough literature reviews and convened two-day forums of 25–40 stakeholders including crime victims and representatives from federal, national, state, local, and tribal organizations and agencies that interact with, serve, or have an impact on victims of crime. The culmination of the Vision 21 initiative was the Vision 21: Transforming Victim Services FinalOpens a New Window Report (The Report), which presented a cohesive and comprehensive framework for strategic change in the victim services field and addressed ways to overcome political, policy, and philosophical challenges in the field.

When federal granting bodies (like OVC) hope to learn from communities innovating practice, they will occasionally provide a small number of communities with funding and expert training and technical assistance in order to evaluate and document the strategies, challenges, and successes of these project sites. Many successful grant programs and privately-funded projects were preceded (and informed) by demonstration sites.

Linking Systems of Care grant-funded demonstration projects have a specific duration and enter a sustainability planning phase for when the OVC grant concludes. At this stage, OVC does not intend to recruit additional states to participate as grant-funded demonstrations sites.

Technical assistance (often called TA) is a term to describe a broad array of support that can be provided to organizations and/or teams who are working to implement new/enhanced practice.

Technical assistance can vary depending upon a project’s needs and might include group facilitation, meeting planning, curricula and policy development, identification/provision of expert consultants, webinar/conference planning support, and/or academic research.

During the 2019-2021 Phase of the Project, the lead national technical assistance (TA) provider organization, The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, in collaboration with OVC, broadened the pool of expertise with two national partner TA organizations: The Center for Court Innovation and the Center for the Study of Social Policy.

In order to meet the needs of the Linking Systems of Care for Children and Youth demonstration sites, the NCJFCJ coordinated with a variety of other national TA providers to provide overall technical assistance to demonstration sites. While NCJFCJ coordinated and provided the majority of TA, NCJFCJ also partnered with our Steering Committee and other national TA providers who are national subject matter experts, including the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, and Futures Without Violence.

The National Steering Committee for Linking Systems of Care for Children and Youth was composed of a multidisciplinary group of experts who provided direction, guidance and education to the demonstration sites and technical assistance providers as they worked on the Linking Systems of Care Project. In part, the function of the Steering Committee was to ensure that the demonstration sites had access to information on a range of topics including trauma-informed care, evidence-based practices, coordinated systems of care, needs assessments, and research. The Steering Committee was composed of a wide variety of professions including judges, attorneys, clinicians, educators, and researchers.

In plain English, a logic model is “a map or simple illustration of what you do, why you do it, what you hope to achieve, and how you will measure achievement.” In the context of Linking Systems of Care for Children and Youth, logic models were used by the demonstration sites to develop “straightforward, yet effective tools to plan, develop and measure goals, objectives, activities, and outcomes.” Logic models define how implementation of a proposed change in a demonstration site (such as using a screening tool) relates to the desired outcome (such as correctly identifying child victims and connecting them with the proper services and resources). Without the use of logic models, it would be difficult to tie any beneficial outcome of implementation to the actual project. Logic models also help national evaluators assess the elements of a project for performance measurement, and help sites continually re-assess whether their plan is functioning effectively.

By its very name, a demonstration project that links systems involves many agencies in . As stated in the Guiding Principles, “All systems of care are connected and aspire to maximize collective impact through communication, collaboration, and coordination.” At a minimum, stakeholders such as government, private and non-profit agencies should be involved in a demonstration site project. This may include survivor groups, tribal government and service-providers, juvenile probation, child welfare, faith communities, local education agencies (LEAs), law enforcement, and state administrators of victim- and child-serving federal funds.

One of the most important strategies for linked systems of care is engaging your community as an important dimension of transparency and accountability for local agencies as they make policy and practice changes, and to facilitate communication and dialogue between service providers and local stakeholders. In addition, community engagement is a critical dimension of ensuring that services are culturally appropriate and responsive to historical and structural trauma. Community engagement also serves the essential purpose of ensuring that the community is aware of the help available for victims of crime.

A pilot site is a specific community in a demonstration state which is charged with directly implementing some, or all, of a project plan developed by the demonstration state leadership team. In the experience of Montana and Virginia, the pilot site implemented a screening tool developed by the state steering committee in conjunction with new practices and procedures designed to facilitate systems of care coordination. During implementation, the pilot sites are a vital source of information to demonstration state coordinators, and provide a feedback loop for making changes during the initial stages of implementation. As such, pilot sites played a critical role in the LSC project.

The selection of pilot sites is a complex process which can require months of planning. Some considerations include: the capacity of pilot sites to deal with an increase in identification of victimized youth, the overall strength of inter-agency communication, the ability of sites to provide continual information to the demonstration site leadership team, the benefit to the pilot site of implementing changes to their procedure, existing grant projects which may be taking place in the pilot site, accessibility concerns, and agency buy-in of the project itself. In addition, a series of trainings prior to, and during, implementation for agencies within the pilot site is often required.

There are many benefits to community participation in a project similar to LSC. The primary benefit is implementing programs that will increase identification of children and youth who have been victimized, and help connect them to better services. Other benefits include the collection of data on victimization in the community and more effective inter-agency collaboration and communication.

A key facet of the Linking Systems of Care project was for demonstration sites to “establish a collaborative body/network of stakeholders. This must consist of all of the relevant systems (e.g., child welfare, juvenile justice, victim services), professionals, community groups, and stakeholders (including families that have interfaced with the systems).” Therefore in nearly all circumstances a demonstration site steering committee will include representatives from critical government agencies such as mental health, child welfare, criminal justice, probation and the court system. In addition, a steering committee should also include representatives from victim service agencies such as domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse coalitions, as well as survivor representatives themselves. A steering committee should also include representatives from culturally appropriate service-provider entities such as communities of faith and ethnic or tribal organizations.

The NCJFCJ provided a variety of tailored technical assistance to demonstration sites. In the past, this TA has included assistance with policy research, identification of resources in rural areas, tribal and cultural information, meeting facilitation, implementation science, connection with experts in the field, onsite visits and distance-based training. As the demonstration sites progressed through the phases of their project, TA tended to change naturally to reflect their goals and activities. For example, during the initial stages of the LSC project, the NCJFCJ often worked hand-in-hand with demonstration sites to identify statewide policies and practices to assist demonstration sites in resource mapping. As the demonstrations sites moved into the implementation phase of their project, TA naturally changed to reflect support in this area.

A key facet of the Linking Systems of Care project was for demonstration sites to “establish a collaborative body/network of stakeholders. This must consist of all of the relevant systems (e.g., child welfare, juvenile justice, victim services), professionals, community groups, and stakeholders (including families that have interfaced with the systems).” Therefore in nearly all circumstances a demonstration site steering committee will include representatives from critical government agencies such as mental health, child welfare, criminal justice, probation and the court system. In addition, a steering committee should also include representatives from victim service agencies such as domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse coalitions, as well as survivor representatives themselves. A steering committee should also include representatives from culturally appropriate service-provider entities such as communities of faith and ethnic or tribal organizations.

There is no easy answer to this question. But, to paraphrase NCJFCJ’s longtime partner, the National Childhood Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN): “Enhancing cultural competence [is] essential to furthering [the] mission of increasing access to and improving the standard of care for traumatized children, families, and communities across the nation.” (NCTSN, 2017). A good start for demonstration sites to acquaint themselves with foundational work on this topic is to review NCTSN’s reports and spotlights on culture and trauma. An excellent introduction to the subject is the four part series “The Organizational Journey Toward Cultural Competence”Opens a New Window which is available on the NCTSN website. Further steps include contacting an expert in cultural responsiveness, and developing some training modules which are specific to an organization’s region and demographics.

Every steering committee will operate differently depending upon the makeup of the committee members, the context in which meetings are held, the leadership of the committee, and many other factors. While there are no hard and fast rules for operating a steering committee, there are many lessons and principles that can assist new demonstration sites in their own steering committee formation and operation process. Steering committee members can help guide demonstration sites on facilitating their own steering committee meetings, collecting information from committee members, assigning tasks, engaging steering committee members, etc.