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WHAT IS SYSTEM OF CARE?
System of Care is a nationally recognized best practices framework for organizing and coordinating services and resources into a comprehensive and interconnected network. Its goal is to work in partnership with individuals and families who need services or resources from multiple human service agencies to be safe and successful at home, in school, and in the community, and through this assistance, make the community a better place to live. System of Care builds on individual and community strengths, and makes the most of existing resources to help children and their families achieve better outcomes.
A System of Care integrates the work of education, juvenile justice, health, mental health, child welfare, family court, and other helping organizations with families through team work and shared responsibility. Families are seen as important team members, working side by side with professionals and community members to plan, deliver, and monitor services for their children.
SOC GUIDING PRINCIPLES
Interagency Collaboration
Interagency Collaboration engages all child and family-serving agencies at all levels of public, private, and faith-based organizations, including child welfare, juvenile justice, mental health, substance abuse, education, health and private providers.
Individualized Strengths—Based Care
Acknowledges each child and families unique set of strengths and needs in developing individualized child and family teams to create customized family driven plans that achieve desired outcomes.
Cultural Competence
Agency policies, training, and family engagement are critical to ensure cultural competence. This is possible by tailoring services (location and types) and programs by considering the cultural, ethnic, racial makeup and personal preference of the family.
Community-Based Services & Supports
Children thrive in the context of their homes, communities and schools. Through local level decision-making that reflects a community’s strengths, a wide range of community based services and supports are possible for children and families.
Child and Family Partnership
Mutual respect and meaningful partnership between families and professionals in the planning and implementation of both individualized plans and community change is essential.
Accountability to Results
Outcomes data is collected, analyzed, and reported on the individual child and family services system, performance, and financial efficiencies. The information is used to inform all stakeholders and serves as a quality assurance process.
HOW DOES A SYSTEM OF CARE WORK?
System of Care is a well-defined model that helps children, youth, families, providers and community work together to help family’s help their children succeed in home, school, and in the community. This is done through a teamwork approach on three distinct levels:
Child and Family Teams (CFTs):
Provide direct services and supports: children with complex challenges and needs, and their families, often need a flexible mixture of formal agency services and informal supports in order to reach their goals. In a System of Care, these supports and services are planned, coordinated, delivered and monitored through a Child and Family Team. The Child and Family Team (CFT) is the ‘heart’ of the System of Care, building a team that is unique for each family, comprised of those persons who are important in their everyday lives.
Community Collaborative:
The Community Collaborative promotes teamwork and change in the broader community that is necessary for Child and Family Teams to succeed in their work with children and families. A Community Collaborative is a diverse governance team that brings together decision-makers, stakeholders, and families to “drive”, manage, and monitor the local System of Care. It requires that providers work together with families and communities in a give-and-take way-finding and building common goals, finding concrete ways to promote collaboration, put into practices best practices and decrease fragmentation, instead of protecting turf and business as usual.
The State Collaborative for Children and Families:
State Collaborative is a state level group of administrators, families, advocacy organizations, educators, private providers and public providers that work together in a neutral environment to identify strengths, issues, barriers, funding, and identify policy and legislative mandates that need to be addressed in order to develop a seamless System of Care for children and families in North Carolina. The State Collaborative supports Community collaboratives and ultimately child and Family Teams by developing relationships among its members, collaborating on child and family focused initiatives and sharing information throughout the State.
For more information about System of Care in Alamance, Caswell and Rockingham Counties contact:
Connie Windham
System of Care Coordinator
336 513-4200 ext. 4900
cwindham@acmhddsa.org
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