The Linking Systems of Care for Children and Youth Demonstration Project (LSC) was a demonstration project designed to support and document the work of statewide initiatives as they promoted healing for victims of crime by developing and coordinating trauma-informed prevention and intervention services for these children and youth and their families.
Four states—Illinois, Montana, Ohio, and Virginia—were selected in a competitive process to participate in planning and implementing reforms. Demonstration projects were intentionally designed to document the work of pioneering communities, which are supported by funding and national experts.
What was the Linking Systems of Care Project?
Linking Systems of Care for Children and Youth Demonstration Project (LSC) did not propose a single approach! States were funded to identify young victims of crime proactively and work holistically with their families and communities to address their needs. Each state approached their work differently, unified by the LSC Guiding Principles and a “No Wrong Door” approach to victim services.
Who was involved in this work?
The four demonstration sites worked in their states to meet the needs of children and youth (and their caregivers) who had been exposed to violence. The LSC work was guided, supported, and documented by the project’s federal partners and national experts.
What Did They Learn?
The LSC sites, Montana, Virginia, Illinois, Ohio, benefited from rigorous project planning, national expertise, peer-to-peer learning, and trial and error. Unified by their adherence to the values and principles set forth in the Guiding Principles, each state’s partners, needs, and approach to victim services and linking systems were unique. The LSC Coordinator Toolkit provides guidance and tools for jurisdictions interested in replicating LSC activities. The LSC Lessons Learned Report narrates a story of how events unfolded.
Guiding Principles
The Linking Systems of Care for Children and Youth Guiding Principles were developed by national experts in wide-ranging, relevant fields and are offered as a touchstone for leaders initiating and/or guiding new approaches to serving child and youth victims of crime. Guiding Principles can guide values discussions with stakeholders, structure community needs assessments, and assist community collaboratives shape, inform, and review services and referrals to address children and youth exposed to violence.
Linking Systems of Care demonstrated change in four states that were chosen for the strength of their application in a competitive federal award process. They were all remarkable in the strength of their statewide collaborations, diversity of their youth populations and stakeholders, and long-term commitment to modelling change.
In each of the states a lead grantee organization built a Linking Systems of Care network of stakeholders and partners; assessed underserved populations and service gaps; developed concrete strategies, techniques, and tools for meeting victim needs; and, linked child and youth victims to an expanded array of support services. Subject to adequate participation and performance, each demonstration project had the possibility of up to six years of ongoing project support through the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC).
Montana
Montana entered Linking Systems of Care as a demonstration site in 2015. Under the leadership of the Montana Board of Crime Control, they implemented consistent screening for childhood through young adults exposure to crime as a victim and worked with a diverse range of communities to link children and youth to services. Their work encompassed urban and rural areas of the state, and they worked closely with Tribal and non-Tribal partners.
Virginia
Virginia entered Linking Systems of Care as a demonstration state in 2015. Under the leadership of their state Department of Social Services, they implemented strategies across a diverse range of communities and stakeholder agencies to screen children and youth exposed to crime, coordinated victim support services, and built a foundation of state policies and tools designed to sustain Linking Systems of Care practices.
Illinois
llinois entered Linking Systems of Care in 2018. Under the leadership of the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (ICJIA), they completed a 15-month planning process and entered into implementation that brought together state agencies across various systems of care , conducted a comprehensive gap analysis that addressed both urban and rural communities, and surveyed service providers and the families of children and youth who had experienced crime as a victim.
Ohio
Ohio entered Linking Systems of Care in 2018. Under the leadership of the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, they assembled a broad range of stakeholder agencies and embarked on a planning and implementation process to identify gaps within the current victims’ support network and developed a plan for identifying needs and making robust service referrals.
FAQs
The Vision 21 Initiative began with the first comprehensive assessment of the victim assistance field in nearly 15 years. The goal of the Vision 21 Initiative was to alter permanently the treatment of crime victims in America. To that end, five organizations collectively examined the current framework of the victim assistance field in the United States. Four of the organizations conducted thorough literature reviews and convened two-day forums of 25–40 stakeholders including crime victims and representatives from federal, national, state, local, and tribal organizations and agencies that interact with, serve, or have an impact on victims of crime. The culmination of the Vision 21 initiative was the Vision 21: Transforming Victim Services FinalOpens a New Window Report (The Report), which presented a cohesive and comprehensive framework for strategic change in the victim services field and addressed ways to overcome political, policy, and philosophical challenges in the field.
The Linking Systems of Care for Children and Youth project addresses recommendation number four: Build and institutionalize capacity through an infusion of technology, training, and innovation.
OVC wanted to learn how better to bring healthcare, child welfare, justice, and other systems together to coordinate and align efforts to ensure a timely and seamless response to young victims, their families, and caregivers no matter the system of entry.
This six-year multi-phased demonstration project is designed to identify and promote healing for victims of crime; provide or coordinate prevention and intervention services to youth and families experiencing trauma and victimization; and build capacity within communities to meet the needs of youth exposed to violence.
When federal granting bodies (like OVC) hope to learn from communities innovating practice, they will occasionally provide a small number of communities with funding and expert training and technical assistance in order to evaluate and document the strategies, challenges, and successes of these project sites. Many successful grant programs and privately-funded projects were preceded (and informed) by demonstration sites.
Linking Systems of Care grant-funded demonstration projects have a specific duration and enter a sustainability planning phase for when the OVC grant concludes. At this stage, OVC does not intend to recruit additional states to participate as grant-funded demonstrations sites.
Technical assistance (often called TA) is a term to describe a broad array of support that can be provided to organizations and/or teams who are working to implement new/enhanced practice.
Technical assistance can vary depending upon a project’s needs and might include group facilitation, meeting planning, curricula and policy development, identification/provision of expert consultants, webinar/conference planning support, and/or academic research.
During the 2019-2021 Phase of the Project, the lead national technical assistance (TA) provider organization, The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, in collaboration with OVC, broadened the pool of expertise with two national partner TA organizations: The Center for Court Innovation and the Center for the Study of Social Policy.
In order to meet the needs of the Linking Systems of Care for Children and Youth demonstration sites, the NCJFCJ coordinated with a variety of other national TA providers to provide overall technical assistance to demonstration sites. While NCJFCJ coordinated and provided the majority of TA, NCJFCJ also partnered with our Steering Committee and other national TA providers who are national subject matter experts, including the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, and Futures Without Violence.
The National Steering Committee for Linking Systems of Care for Children and Youth was composed of a multidisciplinary group of experts who provided direction, guidance and education to the demonstration sites and technical assistance providers as they worked on the Linking Systems of Care Project. In part, the function of the Steering Committee was to ensure that the demonstration sites had access to information on a range of topics including trauma-informed care, evidence-based practices, coordinated systems of care, needs assessments, and research. The Steering Committee was composed of a wide variety of professions including judges, attorneys, clinicians, educators, and researchers.
In plain English, a logic model is “a map or simple illustration of what you do, why you do it, what you hope to achieve, and how you will measure achievement.” In the context of Linking Systems of Care for Children and Youth, logic models were used by the demonstration sites to develop “straightforward, yet effective tools to plan, develop and measure goals, objectives, activities, and outcomes.” Logic models define how implementation of a proposed change in a demonstration site (such as using a screening tool) relates to the desired outcome (such as correctly identifying child victims and connecting them with the proper services and resources). Without the use of logic models, it would be difficult to tie any beneficial outcome of implementation to the actual project. Logic models also help national evaluators assess the elements of a project for performance measurement, and help sites continually re-assess whether their plan is functioning effectively.
By its very name, a demonstration project that links systems involves many agencies in . As stated in the Guiding Principles, “All systems of care are connected and aspire to maximize collective impact through communication, collaboration, and coordination.” At a minimum, stakeholders such as government, private and non-profit agencies should be involved in a demonstration site project. This may include survivor groups, tribal government and service-providers, juvenile probation, child welfare, faith communities, local education agencies (LEAs), law enforcement, and state administrators of victim- and child-serving federal funds.
There are a variety of complex ethical and legal issues that arise when a demonstration site pilots a screening tool. The most comprehensive answer to this question can be found in a webinar provided by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges entitled “The Ethical Implications of Developing and Piloting a Victimization Screening Tool for Children and Youth” by Dr. Celia Fischer of Fordham University. This webinar can be accessed through the following link.
In general, some of the primary ethical issues arising when piloting a youth screening tool include: (1) determining the voluntariness and consent of the youth participants, (2) defining the roles of screeners, (3) mandatory reporting (4) therapeutic misconception, (5) population generalizability, and (6) informed consent.
One of the most important strategies for linked systems of care is engaging your community as an important dimension of transparency and accountability for local agencies as they make policy and practice changes, and to facilitate communication and dialogue between service providers and local stakeholders. In addition, community engagement is a critical dimension of ensuring that services are culturally appropriate and responsive to historical and structural trauma. Community engagement also serves the essential purpose of ensuring that the community is aware of the help available for victims of crime.
A pilot site is a specific community in a demonstration state which is charged with directly implementing some, or all, of a project plan developed by the demonstration state leadership team. In the experience of Montana and Virginia, the pilot site implemented a screening tool developed by the state steering committee in conjunction with new practices and procedures designed to facilitate systems of care coordination. During implementation, the pilot sites are a vital source of information to demonstration state coordinators, and provide a feedback loop for making changes during the initial stages of implementation. As such, pilot sites played a critical role in the LSC project.
The selection of pilot sites is a complex process which can require months of planning. Some considerations include: the capacity of pilot sites to deal with an increase in identification of victimized youth, the overall strength of inter-agency communication, the ability of sites to provide continual information to the demonstration site leadership team, the benefit to the pilot site of implementing changes to their procedure, existing grant projects which may be taking place in the pilot site, accessibility concerns, and agency buy-in of the project itself. In addition, a series of trainings prior to, and during, implementation for agencies within the pilot site is often required.
There are many benefits to community participation in a project similar to LSC. The primary benefit is implementing programs that will increase identification of children and youth who have been victimized, and help connect them to better services. Other benefits include the collection of data on victimization in the community and more effective inter-agency collaboration and communication.
A key facet of the Linking Systems of Care project was for demonstration sites to “establish a collaborative body/network of stakeholders. This must consist of all of the relevant systems (e.g., child welfare, juvenile justice, victim services), professionals, community groups, and stakeholders (including families that have interfaced with the systems).” Therefore in nearly all circumstances a demonstration site steering committee will include representatives from critical government agencies such as mental health, child welfare, criminal justice, probation and the court system. In addition, a steering committee should also include representatives from victim service agencies such as domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse coalitions, as well as survivor representatives themselves. A steering committee should also include representatives from culturally appropriate service-provider entities such as communities of faith and ethnic or tribal organizations.
The NCJFCJ provided a variety of tailored technical assistance to demonstration sites. In the past, this TA has included assistance with policy research, identification of resources in rural areas, tribal and cultural information, meeting facilitation, implementation science, connection with experts in the field, onsite visits and distance-based training. As the demonstration sites progressed through the phases of their project, TA tended to change naturally to reflect their goals and activities. For example, during the initial stages of the LSC project, the NCJFCJ often worked hand-in-hand with demonstration sites to identify statewide policies and practices to assist demonstration sites in resource mapping. As the demonstrations sites moved into the implementation phase of their project, TA naturally changed to reflect support in this area.
A key facet of the Linking Systems of Care project was for demonstration sites to “establish a collaborative body/network of stakeholders. This must consist of all of the relevant systems (e.g., child welfare, juvenile justice, victim services), professionals, community groups, and stakeholders (including families that have interfaced with the systems).” Therefore in nearly all circumstances a demonstration site steering committee will include representatives from critical government agencies such as mental health, child welfare, criminal justice, probation and the court system. In addition, a steering committee should also include representatives from victim service agencies such as domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse coalitions, as well as survivor representatives themselves. A steering committee should also include representatives from culturally appropriate service-provider entities such as communities of faith and ethnic or tribal organizations.
There is no easy answer to this question. But, to paraphrase NCJFCJ’s longtime partner, the National Childhood Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN): “Enhancing cultural competence [is] essential to furthering [the] mission of increasing access to and improving the standard of care for traumatized children, families, and communities across the nation.” (NCTSN, 2017). A good start for demonstration sites to acquaint themselves with foundational work on this topic is to review NCTSN’s reports and spotlights on culture and trauma. An excellent introduction to the subject is the four part series “The Organizational Journey Toward Cultural Competence”Opens a New Window which is available on the NCTSN website. Further steps include contacting an expert in cultural responsiveness, and developing some training modules which are specific to an organization’s region and demographics.
Every steering committee will operate differently depending upon the makeup of the committee members, the context in which meetings are held, the leadership of the committee, and many other factors. While there are no hard and fast rules for operating a steering committee, there are many lessons and principles that can assist new demonstration sites in their own steering committee formation and operation process. Steering committee members can help guide demonstration sites on facilitating their own steering committee meetings, collecting information from committee members, assigning tasks, engaging steering committee members, etc.
This website was supported by cooperative agreement number 2014-VF-GA-K014, awarded by the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this website are those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
