It was 4:45 on a Thursday afternoon when the call came into the Family Council. A DHS Administrator was very concerned. She was working with a single mom with seven children who was facing homelessness. An apartment was available through the subsidized housing complex but wouldn't be available until Tuesday. If she couldn't secure housing for this family today, the children would have to be placed in foster care. Could the Family Council help?

The Executive Director of the Family Council called the Director of the Housing Authority. While the apartment was vacant now, it wasn't scheduled to be cleaned until Monday morning. And, the Housing Authority Director explained, there simply wasn't enough overtime in her budget to pay for someone to clean the apartment any sooner.

The DHS Administrator, Housing Authority Director and Family Council Director put their heads together and came up with the solution. The Council would reimburse the Housing Authority for the overtime pay. The apartment would be cleaned that evening and the family could move in.

Everyone agreed on the value of keeping the family together and making a small investment today to save on a big expense tomorrow.

Often collaborative ventures rise out of a realization that existing service structures on their own have ossified. Despite the good intentions associated with the collaborative infrastructure, those efforts are often reshaped in the same image as the individual systems which are at the table. Many communities have some sort of cross system case staffing capacity which was created in the mid to late eighties. Those bodies came together around information which indicated there were inter-system children not being well served. Today those intersystem staffing bodies are continuing to do the same thing they were doing in the eighties. When you visit these communities individuals are privately candid about doubting the usefulness of those intersystem staffing efforts.

This is not true in Stark County. The best example of a continuous changing focus in Stark County involves the target population. Through the use of creative planning retreats which occurred in the late eighties, System Executives from Stark County began a discussion of target populations. This was after several years of System Executives coming together on specific children through the encouragement of the local juvenile court judge. By the late eighties, the local System Executives had come to realize that they needed to systematize a process which would allow those children involved with multiple systems to have their needs met. This was in contrast to the activities which allowed systems to come together for individual children. By the late eighties systems in Stark County had moved away from a "to each their own" approach to serving children. By working collaboratively to brainstorm solutions for a small number of children, System Executives had recognized the power of collaborative processes to create innovative ideas outside each system's individual parameters.

During the creative planning retreats designed to think about how to better serve children with multi-system needs, the System Executives originally generated a list which was very inclusive. At that time, the Council began to consider that if they didn't pin down a process for a fairly contained set of children they would not be able to do a good job with anyone. In 1991, this general list was refined to include:

• A child in need of many systems for support
• Is in multiple systems
• Is at risk for institutionalization
• Presents as a systems failure
• Has multiple failures across systems

• A Stark County resident
• 0-18 years of age (through the age of 21 in many cases)
• Involved in at least 3 child serving systems including Juvenile Justice, Child Protection, Health, Mental Health, Mental Retardation/Developmental Disabilities, Alcohol & Drug Addiction Services or experiencing a definable problem in Education
• Child's needs must exist within the child's physical, health, medical, emotional, developmental or intellectual functioning as primary obstacles to the child's optimum growth and development

This original target population was clearly characterized as "deep end" children or system failures. By starting small with a clearly targeted group of children, Stark County stakeholders were able to begin to consider ways they could systematize supportive responses for children with significant needs. In many respects this reflected a major step in collective ownership of a problem existing in the community while allowing all of the system stakeholders to take responsibility for potential solutions.

One important element of this original target population is that System Executives discussed the need to see a diminishing of demand for Council supports if this effort was really working. In this way the Council moved the discussion from something inherently difficult about the children themselves as opposed to inadequate system resources or response for certain children and their families. If the demand didn't diminish over time, the Council was prepared to review its procedures to determine why a major change wasn't occurring within each individual agency. The Council made a significant assumption at this time that each system was expected to reduce the numbers of children who the county saw as needing intersystem support. In this way, each system was held accountable for its individual responses to children with needs. Each system was also held accountable to build single system capacity to meet the complex and multiple needs of children within the target group. Thus, participation in the Family Council carried a dual responsibility. The first involved full participation in Family Council activities. The second involved a commitment to embark on a system improvement course to assure that each of the Council's component parts could be as strong as the collective whole.

One important element involves the way the target population is viewed within this county. Those children who are identified as Council children are not expected to remain Council children throughout the duration of their involvement with systems. The Council is seen as a temporary, supplemental arena in which collaborative efforts, pooled funding and the expertise of the Parent organization can be brought to bear in order to meet the needs of that child. When equilibrium has been established, it is expected that a Council child will return to his/her home system with the expertise and supports developed through the Council. Funding from the Pooled fund may or may not flow with children as they return to their home system.

In 1994, the target population changed in Stark County. This occurred as a result of the county's participation in the Ohio Family and Children's First Initiative. Through this initiative Stark County was responsible for developing a Coordinated Services Plan. At that point, the target population moved from the original target to all parents/families voluntarily seeking service and all children who are abused, neglected, dependent, unruly or delinquent between the ages of birth through 21. While the scope of this target population appears to be almost overwhelming, the assumptions made by the Council that each system is individually accountable for children allows the Council to operate with this broad based mandate. Additionally, the history of the Council of working together around small numbers of children who are seen as having multiple needs has allowed the council to move into this inclusive arena. Finally the Council is clearly owned by all participating systems. This allows all systems free and easy access to a creative and coordinated process when they are unable to meet the needs of individual children.

The move towards a more inclusive target population also marked a very significant policy shift for the Council. Prior to 1994, the target population involved defining children. In 1994, that target intentionally included families and parents. In particular, parents are seen as real participants in this process by virtue of targeting parents/families voluntarily seeking services. Parent partnership is being pursued even at the front door of services by including this statement. This also represents a shift in that parents/families seeking services for the first time could access the Family Council process. This potentially changes the target population to an earlier intervention focus as many multi-system children as previously defined often become multi-system after several years in a single system.

One of the enabling features of moving towards an inclusive target population involves the notion of accessibility for all systems. The Council views itself as a creative and reinforcing option for each system as it struggles to meet the needs of children and their families. As such there is minimal prescription about what the involvement of the Council might look like. The Council has spearheaded the presence of a direct service planning and coordinating process (Creative Community Options) which can be implemented through the Family Council or can be initiated through an individual system. Council staff and the Parent Organization (FACES) can be accessed through Council activities or as brainstorming agents for individual system challenges. The Council does not function as the primary case management or care coordination agent for individual children. It does function as a system facilitator which assists on fiscal, direct service, provider relations or contract areas in order to remove bureaucratic barriers which prevent children from getting their needs met. An inclusive target population requires easy access to processes and procedures. That is accomplished in Stark County through providing easy access for systems and families.

In moving towards this inclusive agenda, the Family Council has begun to build a base which will allow for broader system change than key players in this county initially anticipated. A major concern from the earliest target population discussions involved a diminishing demand for children to be referred to the Council. Many collaborative structures often fail to move away from a specifically targeted population. (Appendix DD) The end result is often that children are re-defined as multi-system or multi-need in order to access creative community problem solving mechanisms. This is illustrated in the figure at the right. This often occurs through an unconscious collusion between direct service providers, families and other systems who tend to see the collaborative structure as something outside of themselves. The fact that the Stark County Family Council has purposefully redefined themselves as inclusive for all systems, families and children allows children and families to avoid "system hopping" in order to access a creative and community based process. The change in target population has allowed the Stark County Family Council to do something different than what they used to do.