A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

School-Linked Comprehensive Services for Children and Families - April 1995

Foreword

History

Sometimes we learn from the past. The fall 1994 Working Conference on School-Linked Comprehensive Services for Children and Families: What We Know and What We Need To Know purposely mirrored a strategy used by the National Institute of Education (NIE) in the mid-1970's for developing a research agenda.

Two groups of leading researchers in the fields of teacher education and reading were convened near Dulles Airport outside of Washington, DC, for an intensive period of time. The groups were to identify the state of knowledge in education at that time and then determine the most important questions research should address in order to advance the field. Over the next ten years, available funds at NIE supported research efforts guided by the visions resulting from the "Dulles" meetings. The productive results led to breakthroughs in the thinking, the theory, and the practice in each field.

Twenty years later, in 1994, two educational leaders, Sharon Robinson, Assistant Secretary of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), and Jane Stallings, President of the American Association of Educational Research (AERA), mutually agreed to convene another research agenda setting conference. Believing that schools alone cannot provide all the needed services to assist children in being ready to learn and achieve, Robinson and Stallings charged a planning committee to organize a meeting of researchers/evaluators, service providers, family members and representatives from other Federal agencies who would identify a research and practice agenda on school-linked, comprehensive services for children and families.

Conference Format

To spearhead this important initiative, a 42 member Steering Committee was formed. The membership reflected six Federal departments and nine private sector organizations/associations. This group and the designated planners of the conference agreed that the two primary goals of the conference were:

To determine what we know and what we need to know about school-linked comprehensive services in order to improve outcomes for children and families; and
To develop an agenda for using research-based knowledge to improve interprofessional development and practice.

The Steering Committee faced a hard decision: Who should be invited to attend the conference? This was not an easy decision to make, considering the wide array of organizations with deep commitments to school-linked, comprehensive services through funding, policy-making, and/or research and development efforts. The Committee agreed that the major participants should be those persons involved in collaborative programs currently operating.

Therefore, outstanding programs were selected, using the following criteria:

Each program must have an evaluation component and be able to bring the Evaluator to the conference as part of its team.
The program must have the capacity and resources to serve the entire family, that is, there has to be a range of supports and services for family members, such as GED or citizenship classes, parenting education, literacy programs, etc.
The program must have service providers with cultural competence.
The program must serve a full range of needs, that is, if a child has a disability, the services will be provided so that the family does not have to go elsewhere for "specialized" services.
Geographic equity must be considered in the selection.

When the directors of programs were invited to participate in the working conference, there were further criteria for the program team attending:

There must be a mix of services/disciplines represented.
Families must be considered eligible to be part of the team.
The teams must reflect diversity in gender, culture, ethnicity, disability, and language.

Six Working Groups of approximately 20 persons each emerged as the organizing pattern for the conference. Four of these discussion-work groups were somewhat age-related: Early childhood school-linked programs; Elementary school-linked programs; Adolescent school-linked programs; and Youth-in-transition programs for youth who are displaced, homeless, school drop-outs, parents, migrant, immigrant, juvenile offenders, and other programs that were non-traditional.

The Interprofessional Development and Evaluation groups consisted of people with extensive experience in research, evaluation, and the preparation of educators and others who provide human services. Thus, the conference was a blend of people representing families, practitioners, and academicians.

The steering committee also assisted in the selection of people to write state-of-the-art papers for each Working Group to use as discussion springboards. The authors were asked to:

Describe what we know about what worked in the specific area, illustrating exemplary programs, barriers, and solutions; and
Present what we still need to know in terms of policy, program effectiveness, research designs, and financing.

Additionally, the authors were asked to be provocative and stimulate fresh thinking about the topic. They also were to use data-based information and include data that represent diverse populations, covering issues that affect disability, bilingual, and racial-ethnic groups.

Each Working Group was asked to answer two questions during the conference discussions and deliberations:

Where should the field of school-linked services be in the next ten years?
What do we need to accomplish in the next year?

In order for each group to learn about the other groups' discussions and recommendations, spokespersons were selected for each Working Group. The spokespersons reported to the full body each day. They also represented their groups at a post-conference forum, which was held the day after the conference for federal agency staff and representatives from foundations, professional organizations, and trade associations.

Conclusion

This conference was truly a labor of love and made possible by the dedication of many people and organizations. Hopefully, its results will make a difference for many children and families across the United States.
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[Acknowledgements]