Systems of Care: The Story Behind the Numbers

Abstract

This article presents a brief description of a longitudinal study of system-level change, offers observations about what has been learned about the evolution of systems of care from the unique and qualified perspectives of the group of site visitors who gathered the data for the study, and identifies a set of issues that needs to be addressed to advance the system of care model in community based care of children and youth with behavioral health needs and their families. The article describes the system of care assessment portion of the national evaluation of the Federal Children’s Mental Health Initiative and presents a brief summary of accumulated findings from the assessments conducted in communities funded in six successive waves of awards to provide context for the site visitors’ observations and the authors’ recommendations. The authors draw upon the expert observations of the site visitors, who represent many different disciplines and backgrounds, which suggest that, as a set of guiding principles, the system of care philosophy and approach seem to have become accepted standards of program practice and system operation in the funded sites, although implementation is uneven across principles and sites. The article concludes with the authors’ identification of high-level system issues that must be addressed more effectively if systems of care are to come to scale.