• Policies and payment mechanisms promote services for hard-to-reach and high-risk populations without imposing eligibility requirements that limit access to other populations.
• Policies expand low-income families’ eligibility for and access to all needed services and supports.
• Policies ensure that legal immigrants are eligible for all child and family benefits, including food stamps.
• Third-party payers (including child care subsidies, S-CHIP and Medicaid) and public-private partnerships presume eligibility while families’ applications are under review, thus ensuring continuous coverage.

Means-tested programs (e.g., health care, child care, pre-school programs) are under continuous review to assess trade-offs between targeting resources to the greatest need and achieving universal coverage.

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High Quality

Services and supports are as comprehensive as necessary to be responsive to the needs of families and children, and of the population served: · Programs are designed to meet the specific needs of individual families and children.

• To the extent compatible with their primary mission, programs mobilize a mix of formal and informal supports as well as therapeutic interventions.
• To the extent compatible with their primary mission, programs are flexible and broad-ranging. They include long-term services for chronic difficulties, crisis intervention, and responses to evolving challenges in the same setting.
• Providers identify circumstances that prevent clients from using services and supports effectively and adopt practices that remove barriers (e.g., clients’ transportation, mobility, language, and child care needs).
• Program staff do not compartmentalize families’ problems.
• The focus, duration, frequency, and intensity of interventions, services, and supports are carefully calibrated to the needs, resources, and risk factors of specific children and families and of the population that the program targets.

Services and supports are family-centered and respond to the needs of individual children and families:

• Programs respond to individuals in the context of their family and to families in the context of their community. · Programs address the “whole child.”
• Services reflect the language, values, and cultural backgrounds of clients.
• Programs are characterized by mutually respectful interactions.
• Services engage families in positive activities and build networks of support while also addressing their problems.
• Whenever possible, assistance with problems is an integral part of activities with families (e.g., parent support groups; English as a Second Language, citizenship, or exercise classes; family suppers).

Service settings, procedures, and staff explicitly encourage the development of on-going, mutually respectful relationships among staff and clients: ·

• Service settings are welcoming to families and cognizant of their diverse needs.
• Staff have time to build relationships with clients in order to thoroughly understand their strengths, needs, and circumstances. · Staff involve families and caregivers in identifying needs and solutions.
• Policies and practices for interacting with families make them feel comfortable and safe seeking help.

Programs are sensitive to clients with diverse cultural backgrounds, values, languages, education, and communities: ·

• They make efforts to attract staff who share the cultural heritage and speak the language of the children and families they serve.
• They encourage staff to share with each other their experience and expertise on issues of culture and race.
• They target outreach and services to traditionally underserved families that may have experienced racism and language barriers.
• They give staff time to learn about the different cultures and child-rearing practices of the families and communities they serve.

Programs have staff, supports, facilities, and supports needed to maintain the highest quality standards established by public jurisdictions and professional organizations.

Policies, regulations, and payment mechanisms impose minimal burdens on providers and families.

Policies, regulations, payment mechanisms, and staff training support the provision of competent, comprehensive, continuing, appropriate, and acceptable care.

Policies and staff training encourage the development of respectful, trusting relationships between providers and families.

Policies and systems strategically address individual behaviors and institutional practices that cause inequitable distribution of services and disparities in outcomes because of race or income.

Systems invest money and time to address issues of social justice and equity.

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Effective Management

Explicit principles have been articulated to guide decision-making and practice.

The program’s practices in recruiting, hiring, and retaining qualified staff are aligned with intended results:

• · Programs are mission-driven. Staff demonstrate a belief in the mission. ·
• Staff roles, training and guidance reflect the skills, sophistication, and needs of staff as well as clients.
• Program takes measures to minimize staff turnover.

Administrative practices support front-line discretion while maintaining program quality, individual rights, and accountability:

• Families who present multiple needs and challenges are welcome and engaged by staff.
• Staff help families prioritize interventions to avoid adding stress to fragile families.
• Staff coordinate services, such as family support and home visiting, to reduce duplication and improve effectiveness.
• Programs monitor their efforts to ensure that families are not overwhelmed by services and do not have multiple case managers.

Professional staff and others who provide support to families are well-trained and well-supervised:

• Staff have continuing access to training, supervision, and consultation that help them acquire necessary knowledge and skills and develop a rich repertoire of responses to unexpected circumstances.
• Staff feel supported by their colleagues and supervisors.
• Staff have easy access to consultation with and support from experts in mental health, substance abuse, domestic violence, impaired parent-child relationships, and child development.
• Staff working with children have skills, support, and time to be sensitive to the needs of their families. Staff working with families and other adults have skills, supports, and time to be sensitive to the needs of their children.

Systems have capacity for on-going, cross-program training and support to front-line providers, especially in settings and under auspices that serve high-risk children and families.

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Results Oriented

Effectiveness is gauged by the results and outcomes experienced by children and families:

• Programs seek early, visible gains while working toward long-term goals.
• Regular program assessment and professional development efforts ensure continuous improvement.
• Special attention to enrollment, participation, and attrition helps programs reach and persevere with the highest-risk individuals and families, including those in which caregivers are experiencing abusive relationships, substance abuse, or severe depression.

Community groups assess whether actions and attributes are in place to raise rates of school readiness, identify gaps, and work toward filling them:

• Community has the capacity to monitor program, neighborhood, and community-wide outcomes.
• Community groups recognize the elements of high-quality services and supports (both formal and informal) and invest in them.
• Community groups track the availability of primary and preventive services in addition to crisis interventions.

Connections to and across Services and Supports

Programs take responsibility for forging connections to and across services and supports:

• Staff have the capacity to link children and families with primary supports and services (e.g., housing, child care, jobs) and with specialized services.
• Staff communicate across programs and agencies, plan solutions jointly, agree on common objectives, and share responsibility for attaining goals.
• Program staff recognize the importance of building social connections, organizing and mobilizing community residents, and developing local leaders.
• Agencies coordinate services to minimize burden on families, reduce duplication, and improve effectiveness.

Community groups work to share information about families and to guide families to entry points for primary and specialized services and supports.

Systems are designed to connect families with basic supports, supportive networks, and specialized services.

Systems develop policies and practices to minimize administrative demands on families:

• Client information is shared appropriately across programs to facilitate referrals and avoid duplication in obtaining data and histories. · Services and supports use common eligibility definitions and determinations.
• Case management services are coordinated across programs.
• Fundraising methods promote community-wide planning and the appropriate coordination of services and supports.

Training and supervision are designed to cross disciplines and systems.

Systems go beyond program boundaries to collect and analyze data on the effectiveness of actions and strategies.

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Community Engagement and Social Networks

Community groups continually prepare residents to participate confidently in community-wide planning and decision making and to use experts as needed to help shape and implement strategies.

Residents participate actively in community visioning, planning, service design, decision making, and neighborhood improvement efforts.

Community activities and events promote belonging, social connectedness, and the development of relationships.

The community is committed to building bridges across race, class, and language. Community initiatives:

• Explicitly recognize that racism, classism, and language bias have traditionally limited the diversity of participants in the decision-making process · Identify and build on the assets of diverse people and groups who reside in the community
• Promote a greater understanding of issues of race, language, culture, class, social justice, and equity
• Foster opportunities to identify common ground and understanding across racial, language, cultural, and class lines within a community
• Regularly assess how well they are addressing issues of social justice, equity, and diversity

Sustainability

Stakeholders develop alliances at the local, state, regional, and national levels to maximize the chances of sustaining what works over time. Alliances that support leadership development, technical assistance, and funding are especially important.

Policies governing supports for training, recruitment, retention, reimbursement, credentialing, and licensing (including loan forgiveness) ensure an adequate supply of high-quality providers.

Systems establish early, ongoing efforts to identify alternative funding sources and leverage private-sector support.

Sustainability strategies encourage community engagement around issues that are priorities for children and families.

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Funding

Funding investments are made on terms and at levels that ensure high-quality implementation:

• Adequate, stable, predictable funding is available for services and supports that prevent problems, as well as for services provided in response to identified problems.
• Funding policies recognize the importance of strengthening service providers and community organizations by providing core funding for essential activities that cannot be supported through categorical projects or programs.
• Funding is available to respond to children and families at high social risk, in addition to those who have biological impairments or risks.
• When new standards are applied or quality standards are raised, funding and other resources are available for technical assistance, training, and compliance monitoring.

Funding is sufficiently flexible that services and supports can be tailored to the needs of specific families and communities:

• Funding policies facilitate program efforts to integrate multiple funding streams to support two- and three-generation services.
• Funding is available to connect services across traditional categories (e.g., when a prenatal care provider finds that his/her patient needs housing assistance or substance abuse treatment).
• Funding policies allow for “glue money” to promote a continuum of services and supports across disciplines and systems, networks of services, links between services, and on-going expert consultation for service providers.
• Funding policies are designed to assure the availability of temporary and emergency assistance (e.g., to prevent homelessness)

Funding is allocated through processes that are simple, streamlined, and focused on achieving results for children, families, and neighborhoods.

• Rules for funding, reimbursement, and eligibility do not undermine the accessibility and effectiveness of services.
• Funding is available to produce information that is linguistically and culturally appropriate for families.
• Funding processes are coordinated to help families navigate and use helping systems, communicate effectively with staff, and make informed decisions about lifestyle choices, treatment options, and other aspects of services and supports.

Funding policies take into account high-risk populations’ greater need for intensive services.