Keypoints
Findings & Recommendations
November 30, 1999

• Goals of a consolidated children's agency -- leadership and advocacy for children's issues and integrated service delivery -- have not been fulfilled.
• No overarching policy guides state government efforts to promote well-being of children and their families.
• No formal structure exists to examine the "big picture" or coordinate services and resources of the many state agencies responsible for children.
• Major barriers to integrated services are categorical funding, lack of a coordinating mechanism, and "turf wars" among programs and agencies; most effective incentive for interagency coordination is financial.
• Noncategorical, flexible funding is more important to integration than organizational structure.
• Children and families are best served by integrated, individualized care delivered through community-based systems.
• Coordinating resources and services to achieve an integrated care system must be the priority of a single entity without responsibilities for providing direct services.
• All three branches of government, not just DCF, have responsibility for prevention; coordinating prevention efforts needs to be one entity's focus.
• Leadership and management for child protective services, children's behavioral health, and juvenile justice must be strengthened; each mandate must be an agency's priority to ensure it receives sufficient attention and resources.
• Despite continuous efforts to "fix" DCF, it is plagued by systemic management deficiencies.
• DCF's child protective services mandate dominates agency policy and resources; it must be a priority due to dramatic increases in the number and severity of child abuse and neglect cases as well as a federal court consent decree.
• Children's behavioral health and juvenile justice mandates have been seriously neglected by DCF and the legislature and only receive attention in response to a crisis.
• Separate state agencies can focus on each mandate to ensure leadership and parity; service delivery can be integrated through a statewide coordinating structure and "pooled" resources.

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