VOL 1 - Center for Effective Collaboration and Practice - American ...

Executive Summary
Promising Practices in Children’s Mental Health
Systems of Care - 1998 Series
Since Knitzer’s 1982 wake up call to the mental health community, family members have gained
knowledge, skills, and access to influence systems of care so our children with mental health needs receive
better services and we get supports to raise them to be strong and healthy. We have found and developed
our voice. We have become strong partners and assertive leaders in developing a better system of care for
our children. We now serve as collaborators, advisors, providers, planners, administrators, evaluators, as
well as advocates. Our work provides information and assistance to other families and professionals. We
have begun to help one another coordinate the system of care and provide pre-service training to personnel
who will be serving our children and families. The diversity and scope of our activities demonstrates the
impact families have had on the systems of care emerging around the country. 1
NEW ROLES FOR FAMILIES
In this paper, we define and describe two roles for families that are promising practices at the cutting
edge of this whole new world.
The term “system of care facilitator” was chosen by our writing team to describe one of the most
prevalent and rapidly evolving of the new roles for families in systems of care. This term reflects the key
feature of the role — namely, that the family member employed in this position uses a variety of strategies to
help enrolled families become familiar with their community’s system of care, learn how to effectively
participate in it and, thereby, gain access to quality services that improve outcomes for their child and family.
In short, they facilitate development of a positive working relationship between families and the system of
care.
The term “family as faculty” is used to describe the role family members co-teaching with university
faculty who are preparing the workforce for systems of care. This is a very promising practice, but not very
widespread. We also include a description of a more traditional involvement of family members in university
training programs — that of guest lecturer.
1 See Appendix A for a description of values and principles for the system of care.
Volume I: New Roles for Families 9