Final Report - RI Department of Children, Youth & Families

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW
disorders; children who have been abused and/or neglected; youth involved with the juvenile
justice system; and system-involved females, whose unique pathways into the system and
specialized needs have only recently come into view.
THEME: PROMOTING BEST PRACTICES
The Rhode Island System of Care is built upon and builds on principles of best practice. Too
often government and private resources have been used to establish and support programs
which often show little evidence of significantly increasing positive outcomes for children,
youth, and families. This in turn has led to a significant decrease in the resources available to
programs and services that provide promising or excellent results through quality outcomes.
In order for Rhode Island’s System of Care to make effective use of finite resources, it
requires all components of the system to follow best practice principles which ensure that
each child is served in the most integrated setting appropriate.
SYSTEM STRATEGY #1 - CHILDREN’S CABINET’S LEAD SYSTEM ROLE
The Children’s Cabinet provides the state leadership necessary to assist each community in
organizing new or strengthening existing collaborative efforts aimed at increasing the ability
of communities to plan strategically to meet the needs of their children, youth and families
(see Chapter 2). Emphasis is placed on rewarding community-wide collaboration through the
targeting of technical assistance and funding to communities which have collaboratively
developed local strategic plans for enhancing prevention programming and identifying
community, strengths, risks, and needs in relation to children and their families across the
system of care.
SYSTEM STRATEGY #2- COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP SUPPORTED BY STATE AID
In embracing these outcomes, the system is one which recognizes that communities bear the
primary responsibility for helping children and families succeed, while ensuring that limited
state resources are effectively mobilized to aid communities with this challenge (see Chapter
2). It recognizes that the state bears the primary fiscal responsibility for these services. Built
on the concept of family-centered practice (see Appendix B) and the principles of the
Child and Adolescent Services System Program (CASSP; see Appendix D), this system
recognizes and endorses the belief that the most effective path to success is for communities
to take responsibility for - “to own” - all of their children and families, especially those
viewed as the most challenging. All facets of the community, especially schools, accept their
responsibility in supporting all children and families and ensuring that services are provided
either in the community or as proximate to the community as possible. This support is
particularly critical when an individual returns from placement outside of the community,
including residential programs, psychiatric hospitals, the RI Training School and the Adult
Correctional System.
System of Care Task Force Report (January 2003) 18