Effective Collaboration For Serious Violent Offender Reentry

1. Effective Collaboration For Serious Violent Offender Reentry David Osher, Ph.D. Center for Effective Collaboration and Practice Technical Assistance Partnership for Child & Family Mental Health American Institutes for Research www.air.org/cecp www.air.org/tapartnership OJJDP Conference on Serious Violent Offender Reentry Washington, DC October 1, 2002

3. Why Collaborate? • Youth Have Multiple Needs • Mental health • Physical Health • Substance Abuse Prevention & Treatment • Education • Employment • Housing • Recreation • Spiritual • Family

4. Why Collaborate? • Stakeholders have Multiple Concerns About Short and Long-Term Educational, Vocational, Civic, and Safety Outcomes • Families • Schools • Taxpayers

5. Why Collaborate? • Eliminate Fragmentation • Eliminate Duplication • Eliminate Distrust • Use Scarce Resources Wisely • Address Multiple Risk Factors Across Multiple Domains • Improve the Effectiveness of Interventions • Build Capacity—No Agency Can Do It Alone • Enhance Staff & Community Safety

6. Collaboration is Not a Good in Itself • Can Collaborate to Do Bad Things • (or because the “Boss told you to”) • Can Collaborate to Do Good Things, but Do them Badly

7. Cultural Barriers to Collaboration • Knowledge • Professional Socialization • Language • Missions, Values, Beliefs, Rituals • Communities of Knowledge and Communities of Practice • Constituencies and their expectations

8. Structural Barriers to Collaboration • Mandates & Accountability • Funding Streams • Organization of Resources • Jobs • Money • Time • The burden of routine • What is on the desk when one gets back from a planning meeting

9. Other Barriers to Collaboration • Self-interest • Turf • Management of Change • Agency Driven approaches to planning and evaluation

10. Who is Collaborating (Different Dynamics) • Agency Collaboration • Inter Agency Collaboration • Family Agency Collaboration • Family Interagency Collaboration • Agency Community Collaboration • Faith Based and Community Collaboration • Inter Agency Community Collaboration • Interagency Family Community Collaboration

11. We can Distinguish Between Two Approaches to Service Delivery

12. Provider-driven Systems • Professionals and agencies are viewed as the key force in solving problems. • Providers “fix” their “clients” who are compliant and passive. • Family members often share this orientation because: • they are socialized to it as a sign of respect; • they are fulfilling the expectations of the system in order to insure they get services; • they have been blamed, labeled dysfunctional, judged inadequate or otherwise deemed unfit to make decisions.

13. Family-driven Systems • Responsibility for decision making is held collectively and equally by all members of the team. • The Family is: • deemed to have expert knowledge regarding their child; and • expected to contribute to defining and resolving the issues.

14. Family-driven Practice in ACTION Example • Back End: • Rhode Island Parent Support Network Led Transition Planning at the RITS

15. Characteristics of Effective Community-Wide Collaborations • Shared Ownership and Accountability • Consumer-Driven • Consumer-centered Goals and Orientation • Multi-disciplinary across multiple domains • Strategic & Data Driven • Individual & Collective Accountability • Culturally Competent • Problem-Solving Approach • Clear, Consistent, & Simple Interventions & Expectations

16. Characteristics of Effective Collaborations • Sustained • Supportive Infrastructure • Institutionalized through • Policy • Leadership • Management • Protocols & Procedures, • Practices • Monitoring • CQI • Evaluation

17. Impact of Collaboration • Agency staff have come to know their counterparts in other agencies and are friendlier with one another; allowing them to work with one another in a more respectful way. • Agencies work together to change or adapt to a situation rather than place blame. • Shifting the focus of service delivery from the individual service provider to the system as a whole.

18. Impact of Collaboration • Less service fragmentation. • Better response to specialized through more appropriate service options. • Enhanced access to services • Improved ability to consider the needs of the “whole child and the whole family” within the context of their community.

19. Collaborative Outcomes: The Bottom Line • KEEP IT SIMPLE • KEEP IT REAL • KEEP THE FOCUS ON • THE CHILD • THE FAMILY • COMMUNITY CAPACITY & SAFETY • LINK IT TO A THEORY OF CHANGE

20. Towards Effective Collaboration Talking the Talk Walking the Talk Walking the Walk

21. Collaboration as a Developmental Process Stage I: Individual Action Stage II: One-on-One Stage III: New Service Development Stage IV: Professional Collaboration Stage V: True Collaboration Promising Practices in Children’s Mental Health: Volume VI

22. Resources www.air.org/cecp • Video: Making Collaboration Work for Children, Youth, Families, Schools, & Communities (CEC) • Video: Promising Practices for Safe and Effective Schools (OJJDP) • Promising Practices in Children’s Mental Health (CECP, 1999, 2000, 2001) 13 Volumes • Improving Prevention, Providing More Efficient Services, and Reducing Recidivism For Youth With Disabilities (CECP/EDJJ)