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

What We Need to Know From Research

Those who receive services and those who provide them sincerely want to use research knowledge, information about exemplary practices, and networking to create strong school-linked collaborative programs. Those who prepare personnel see collaborative efforts as helping to create an emerging definition of what professional practice should be for all service systems. Evaluators recognize that their traditional methods are insufficient to measure the effects of collaboration.

All of these interests recognize they are at the edge of dramatic changes in services for children and families. Their opinions, speculations, and recommendations are couched in the needs of the groups whom they represent, be they families or policymakers. However, the Working Groups not only expressed common themes for a research agenda but also common concerns under each of the themes. The following questions represent the major research knowledge needs identified by all of the groups.

Committed Leadership

During Working Group discussions, the need to study the form and functions of leadership as well as the level of commitment of leaders to different aspects of the program surfaced again and again. The necessity of having strong leaders to guide program activities has been identified in the literature on school-linked comprehensive services as a critical characteristic of promising school-linked programs, but few have examined the impact of strong leadership, or the absence of strong leadership, on program courses. The following questions address this need.

What are the skills, abilities, beliefs, and knowledge needed to provide effective leadership in comprehensive, collaborative initiatives? What makes some leaders more effective than others? How do leadership and interpersonal skills affect the outcomes of school-linked comprehensive services?
What are the career development pathways of effective leaders of collaboration?
What support is needed to help leaders of collaborative services remain flexible, forward-looking, and resilient?
What are the characteristics of networks that are effective in helping leaders from different sectors/agencies work together?

Cultural Sensitivity and Congruence

One of the strongest themes that emerged during the discussions of research and evaluation of school-linked comprehensive programs was related to cultural sensitivity. It is critically important that the term cultural sensitivity be given the most all-encompassing definition possible, including youth with disabilities and special needs and their families as recipients of services. Participants discussed the need to address cultural sensitivity and congruence primarily from three different approaches emphasized in the specific questions which follow. First, study the impact of contextual factors, particularly cultural factors, on the processes and outcomes of the intervention. Second, find ways to conduct evaluations that are appropriate and congruent with the culture of the community in which the services are located. And third, stress the importance of developing evaluators who understand and operate with sensitivity in different cultural settings.

How does cultural competence of staff affect services and the development of collaboration?
What are successful strategies for recruiting a staff that match the diversity of children and families served by a program?
What strategies work best in transforming the attitudes of current staff toward greater acceptance and response to cultural diversity of clients? How far can staff development be expected to move individual staff members from cultural insensitivity to cultural congruence?
What strategies work best for the active inclusion of children and families from different cultures in the designing of agendas, setting of priorities, and evaluation of services?
How can the different value systems and codes of ethics represented by people/agencies participating in collaborative initiatives best be negotiated?

Participant-Driven Approach

One of the relatively new approaches suggested by the Working Group involves participatory, client-driven studies which include program participants and service clients in the design, implementation, and interpretation of the evaluation plan. The questions below suggest topics of study related to benefits, barriers, and strategies for involvement related to collaborative, client-driven research.

From a family perspective, what is it that draws parents to participate in program services and involves them meaningfully in governance and decisionmaking? What are the barriers that discourage them? How can the barriers be overcome?
What strategies work best in assuring that students/families are integrally involved in the design and implementation of services?
What are the different perceptions broadly representative of professionals and families toward services provided?
How do different users of knowledge about service delivery--parents, staff, university personnel, and community members--perceive and apply the knowledge?
What are the best ways to involve recipients of coordinated services in the research while maintaining viable research methods?

Interprofessional Development

Interprofessional collaboration suggests that new skills and understandings must be developed in professional preparation programs. That is, the ability of professionals to integrate and connect services for children and youth with their potential problems will depend on the quality of the training and research programs that are developed to support them. The following questions suggest a research agenda to investigate the needs, processes, and outcomes of these programs.

What skills and abilities do staff members need in order to collaborate successfully with practitioners from other disciplines and from other types of community agencies? Which ones are generic, which ones relate to a particular profession?
How do personnel policies differ across professions involved in collaboration (e.g. independence, responsibility, pay, job security)? What impact do these differences have upon collaboration?
What are current and projected personnel needs for comprehensive services programs both in settings and in professions?
What is the status of university-based preparation programs? What already exists in the curricula, what is needed, how must the curricula be adjusted to different contexts, and how can interprofessional programs best be institutionalized in university communities? What is the progression of core competencies from undergraduate through graduate and development programs?
How can communities, universities, and collaborative sites learn from each other and contribute to changes in the rewards for personnel within each context?
How will an interdisciplinary code of ethics be developed and by whom?

New Research Approaches

The development of new research approaches that take into consideration the complexity of the models for school-linked, comprehensive services was a primary focus of discussion by the Working Groups. The questions which follow emphasize capturing the complexity, rather than attempting to simplify and isolate elements; considering context rather than trying to factor it out of research and evaluation; recognizing that longitudinal studies will be necessary to describe and assess the evolution of processes and outcomes over time; and involving service providers and consumers in design, implementation, and interpretation of research and evaluation.

How can research address the measurement of outcomes that reflect not only the goals of the schools, but also of multiple agencies? What new research strategies or ones not traditionally used are needed to consider the multiple variables associated with school-linked comprehensive services?
What has been the impact of previous research about school-linked comprehensive services on practice?
How do we describe relational qualities such as mentoring, respect, and caring and make them count in evaluation? What research measures are needed to evaluate program-specific goals of school-linked services such as collaboration, family-based outcomes, or client satisfaction?
How can the need for longitudinal research on collaborative practices be recognized and assured in policymaking?
What steps need to be taken to assure that both culturally sensitive research and client-driven research are part of the agenda?
What new strategies are needed to communicate research findings to broad, non-professional audiences?

Flexibility in Policies

The final theme involves the necessity for flexibility in politics associated with school-linked comprehensive services. In particular, the following questions for study include financial and funding questions, such as the effects of different funding mechanisms, the relationship between funding and effectiveness, cost effectiveness of various service integration configurations, and the measurement of equity within the framework of the cost relative to desirable outcomes as well as issues related to scaling up and sustainability of efforts.

How do categorical funding streams create unnecessary barriers to the effective implementation of school-linked services for adolescents and families?
What policies are needed to allow flexible access to monies set aside for children's services, yet still maintain accountability standards?
What current policies in state legislation are examples of supportive approaches to school-linked comprehensive services?
What policies are needed to move from program-specific collaborations on sites to overall reforms involving schools and communities?
How can the differing policies among service deliverers regarding confidentiality become cohesive and collaborative in ways that both protect the privacy of children, youth, and families but, at the same time, allow for flexibility?

-###-

[What We Know From Research and Practice]

[Summary]