This week, we will learn about the Community Response Data System. Thank you, Jeff Chambers, for providing the following information about your project.
CCFL Community Services division is assisting the Nebraska Children and Families Foundation and ten communities across the State of Nebraska implement Community Response. CCFL’s role is primarily in the design, development, and management of the data system.
Community Response is a system of supports and services for children and families to prevent the unnecessary entry into the child welfare system and/or other high-end systems of care. Participating communities develop and coordinate an array of local resources to determine eligibility criteria, identify families, administer and share screening and assessments, and provide support to qualified families.
Community Response can be considered the prevention track to Alternative Response and is part of a Community Prevention System being implemented in communities across Nebraska. It comprises formal and informal community services and supports (e.g. churches, basic need agencies, public health, child care, schools, neighborhood groups, etc.) committed to keeping children safely in their homes and out of the public child welfare and juvenile justice systems. The Community Response approach relies on family engagement and practices such as central navigation and flexible funding to provide uniquely tailored services appropriate for each family or youth who has come to the attention of the community. The organized array of resources is accessed through collaborative partners who formally pledge to serve and support families first, no matter the barriers (e.g. funding, eligibility, agency policies, etc.). This allows individuals to access services without a CPS call or being involved in the CPS system.
This project formally began in January 2017 for CCFL to develop, implement, and manage the data system for the participating communities. Work related to this project has been ongoing at CCFL for literally decades. CCFL proposed to the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services as a result of the NDHHS funded “Maltreatment Rates Project” in 1999 that community systems and infrastructure were key players in the prevention of child abuse and neglect and should be incorporated into child abuse and neglect prevention to most effectively meet the needs of children. CCFL followed that report up with a five-year National Institute of Health funded research grant examining the child neglect in rural communities and the impact community norms and systems have on the identification, response to, and reporting of child neglect. The model developed for this research included at the very heart “community response” as the factor that most directly affected both the amount of neglect reported and the estimates of actual incidence of neglect in rural communities. So I take some non-insignificant amount of satisfaction that 15 years later folks are coming around and looking at reality.
Challenges in the project are that, by the very nature community based solutions there are oftentimes significant differences in design specifics and in the specifics of implementation.
The most satisfying aspect of this project is being a part of effort that builds, knowingly or unknowingly, on the work done at CCFL for decades to better the lives of children and improve our communities. Here is a link to a video of that highlights the Fremont community response effort which CCFL Community Services has been assisting in designing, developing, and implementation even prior to the Nebraska Children and Families Foundation funded effort. http://www.nebraskachildren.org/our-approach/evidence-based-strategies/community-response.html
Presenting the final report to NDHHS staff in 2000, the comments upon hearing our recommendations included: “Newt Gingrich would love this.” The report and our findings were not, as you can expect from that response, used to develop policy at that time.