Effective Collaboration For Serious Violent Offender Reentry

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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.or
g/cecp www.air.org/tapartnership OJJDP Conference
on Serious Violent Offender Reentry Washington,
DC October 1, 2002
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(No Transcript)
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Why Collaborate?

• Youth Have Multiple Needs
• Mental health
• Physical Health
• Substance Abuse Prevention Treatment
• Education
• Employment
• Housing
• Recreation
• Spiritual
• Family

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Why Collaborate?

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

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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 CapacityNo Agency Can Do It Alone
• Enhance Staff Community Safety

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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

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Cultural Barriers to Collaboration

• Knowledge
• Professional Socialization
• Language
• Missions, Values, Beliefs, Rituals
• Communities of Knowledge and Communities of
  Practice
• Constituencies and their expectations

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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

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Other Barriers to Collaboration

• Self-interest
• Turf
• Management of Change
• Agency Driven approaches to planning and
  evaluation

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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

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We can Distinguish Between Two Approaches to
Service Delivery
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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.

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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.

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Family-driven Practice in ACTION Example

• Back End
• Rhode Island Parent Support Network Led
  Transition Planning at the RITS

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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

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Characteristics of Effective Collaborations

• Sustained
• Supportive Infrastructure
• Institutionalized through
• Policy
• Leadership
• Management
• Protocols Procedures,
• Practices
• Monitoring
• CQI
• Evaluation

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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.

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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.

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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

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Towards Effective Collaboration
Talking the Talk
Walking the Talk
Walking the Walk
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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 Childrens Mental Health
Volume VI
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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 Childrens Mental Health
  (CECP, 1999, 2000, 2001) 13 Volumes
• Improving Prevention, Providing More Efficient
  Services, and Reducing Recidivism For Youth With
  Disabilities (CECP/EDJJ)