Children, Families and Communities
Early Lessons from a New Approach to Social Services
Initiatives to improve the lives of children and families and rebuild communities are underway across the country. The aims and approaches of these initiatives are diverse: Some focus on reforming social services, others on economic or physical development, still others on working across sectors. Most are guided by a set of compelling, common-sense ideas about what more supportive communities might look like and what broad changes from current practice would help create them. But there are no blueprints for implementing these visions; participants must discover what it takes to rebuild communities as initiatives evolve.
CHILDREN, FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES: EARLY LESSONS FROM A NEW APPROACH TO SOCIAL SERVICES, a new report co-published by the American Youth Policy Forum and the Education and Human Services Consortium, offers both a big-picture analysis of comprehensive, community-based initiatives and a more focused look through the lens of one such initiative in Chicago. This lens, the Children, Youth and Families (CYF) Initiative sponsored by the Chicago Community Trust, is a ten-year, $30 million effort to enhance the development of children, families and communities in eight Chicago neighborhoods.
The CYF Initiative is based on research and a reform agenda developed by the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago. It proposes a shift from an exclusive focus on curing or preventing problems for some children and families to one that promotes the development of all children and families. The Initiative relies on neighborhood resources -- after school programs, youth groups, sports teams, parks, libraries, settlement houses and community centers and joins these "primary services" as full partners with the traditional "specialized services" -- including child welfare, education, mental health and juvenile justice -- to form a community-governed infrastructure of services.
The report, written by Joan Wynn, Sheila M. Merry, and Patricia G. Berg, lays out the fundamental ideas behind the CYF Initiative, describes the eight communities involved and then presents early lessons on key issues for comprehensive community initiatives: governance, developing and linking services, access to services and training for staff and volunteers. In the final section, the authors examine the role of the sponsor, the role of the evaluator and the value of learning from both successes and obstacles. The eight communities' unique demographics and resources shape the Initiative in different ways, thus showing readers how a dynamic framework for change works in a variety of settings. The case study of the CYF Initiative makes CHILDREN, FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES a rich source of ideas and inspiration for policy makers and practitioners.
To order the 48-page report, please see our Order Form. The cost of the report is $5. For information on additional AYPF publications, please go back to our Publications List.