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

Compelling Conference Themes

The six Working Groups at the Conference produced separate agendas specific to their areas. However, as they reported their findings, it became obvious that the conference participants considered some principles and priorities for research on school-linked comprehensive services more important than others. A consensus emerged around certain themes. In the final reports from the groups, the recommendations were largely organized around the themes that cut across the groups. The summary that follows likewise uses the themes to express the dominant concerns of the various Working Groups in order to present a cohesive, to-the-point statement on an agenda for the research community.

The major themes were:

Committed Leadership. No matter the program or the overall system, the success of school-linked comprehensive services depends upon committed leadership. Research programs need to determine the qualities of such leadership, how to develop them, and how to sustain them in the pressure-cooker circumstances of implementing and expanding comprehensive services.
Cultural Sensitivity and Congruence. As one group expressed the problem: "The complex matrix of discrimination based upon language, race and ethnicity, class, gender, and sexual orientation is devastating." The challenge is not only to be totally open and to invite diversity in programs and in carrying out research/evaluation, but also to go beyond superficial "sensitivity training" and attain true changes in people's attitudes and behaviors about cultural differences.
Participant Driven: Involving Families and Students in the Design, Implementation, and Evaluation of Supports and Services. "Some families have never had a chance to make a decision," noted one participant, adding, "there is a big difference between offering someone an opportunity to participate and telling them they have to participate." Research, the Working Conference - concluded, must be directed at, and understood by, the consumers of programs as much as it is used by the research/policymaking communities.
Interprofessional Development. Rather than develop a new profession to direct collaborative approaches, a new way of preparing all professionals needs to be built. This will require changes throughout the campus culture and new relationships between professional preparation programs and communities/clients. The few existing interdisciplinary program directors are pioneers who often feel like guerrillas, but interprofessional development, the Working Conference said, is as inevitable as collaborative services.
New Research Approaches. The complexity of evaluating collaborative efforts--when they consist of multiple programs, policies, clients, and outcomes--is staggering. Moreover, the inclusion of clients as a principle for future research requires changing attitudes and outlooks. But first, research on school-linked comprehensive services must have a conceptual framework to decide what dimensions need special attention.
Flexibility in Policies. Trusting local decisionmaking on practices and evaluation of school-linked comprehensive services requires complementary flexibility in policies. Localities need to be allowed to do what they believe best. Most often, flexibility issues concern funding streams, but for program managers the issues of confidentiality and eligibility also need to be informed by appropriate research.

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[Conference Strands]

[What We Know From Research and Practice]