NCREL's Policy Briefs

Integrating Community Services for
Young Children and Their Families

Changing Direction Toward a Profamily System

If communities are going to support young children and their families, then new ways of crafting service delivery efforts must be found. Efforts must go beyond cooperation and coordination to collaboration.

In 1991, the U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services convened 26 practitioners, researchers, and scholars from around the country who were developing innovative service delivery for children, youth, and families. These individuals, collectively called the School-Linked Integrated Services Study Group, were charged with discussing their experiences in collaborative endeavors. Three writers captured these experiences in a guide for integrating services, entitled Together We Can: A Guide for Crafting a Profamily System of Education and Human Services (Melaville, Blank, and Asayesh 1993). The Study Group based its discussions on a vision of "communities where learning can happen and the creation of a `profamily' system that expands the capacity of helping institutions and crisis-intervention and treatment services to work together" (p. vii).

Basic to the guide is the concept of systems change - "a revision of the ways that people and institutions think, behave, and use their resources to affect fundamentally the types, quality, and degree of service delivery to children and families" (Melaville, Blank, & Asayesh, 1993, p. vii). The Study Group believes that collaborative strategies are the key to systems change.

In a collaborative strategy, partners share a common vision, establish common goals, and agree to use their personal and institutional power to achieve them. Partners have authority to speak for their institutions or the segments of the community that they represent; to commit resources (human, material, and financial); and to alter existing policies and procedures to attain measurable and attainable objectives. Finally, "they accept individual and collective responsibility for outcomes" (Melaville, Blank, and Asayesh, 1993, p. 15).

Inherent in a profamily system are new working relationships, operating assumptions, and high-quality services that support families and help them reach their potential. While the specifics of such a system will vary according to the needs of each community and the availability of resources, a profamily system will generally have the following characteristics:

• Comprehensive. A variety of opportunities and services respond to the full range of child and family needs.

• Preventive. The bulk of resources are provided at the "front end" to prevent problems rather than at the "back end" for more costly crisis-intervention and treatment services.

• Family-centered and family-driven. The system meets the needs of whole families, not just individuals, and assumes that every family has strengths. Families have a major voice in setting goals and deciding which services they need to meet these goals. Service delivery features (e.g., hours and location of services) serve family needs, rather than institutional preferences.

• Integrated. Separate services are connected by common intake, eligibility determination, and individual family service planning so that each family's entire range of needs is addressed.

• Developmental. Assessments and plans respond to children's and families' changing needs.

• Flexible. Frontline workers respond quickly to family needs, and waivers are available to address emergencies or prevent them from occurring.

• Sensitive to cultural, gender, ability, and racial differences. Respect for differences is formalized in systemwide policy statements, carried out in staff development activities, and reflected through diversity in governing boards and staff.

• Outcomes-oriented. Performance is measured by improved outcomes for children and families, not simply by the number and kind of services delivered (Melaville, Blank, & Asayesh, 1993).

References and Resources

Posted on March 23, 1995

URL: http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/envrnmnt/go/93-3chan.htm