Fairfax County officials look to improve support systems for children
Government, schools seek better ways to coordinate dispersed efforts
http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/article/20140227/NEWS/140229338/1117/fairfax-county-officials-look-to-improve-support-systems-for-children&template=fairfaxTimes
Fairfax County government and school officials are pushing to weave a tighter net of support for children.
While county programs promoting children’s safety, health, academic achievement and more abound, these diverse initiatives lack coordination. Officials want to create better connections to keep children from slipping through the cracks.
At a meeting of county’s Successful Children and Youth Policy Team (SCYPT) on Wednesday, School Board member Megan McLaughlin (Braddock) offered the school disciplinary system as a prime example of the problems dispersed efforts can create.
“If a child acts out at school, you cannot take an incident in a vacuum,” McLaughlin said. “You have to be aware of what else is going on in a child’s life. But what is the framework to make that actually happen?”
Right now, if children are struggling with issues such as homelessness or domestic violence at home, a school might not know about it, according to Mary Ann Panarelli, director of the school system’s Intervention and Prevention Services.
But the effort to share and collaborate is about more than just individual cases. Wednesday’s SCYPT discussion focused on how better communication between organizations could improve equity for minority children.
County and school officials looked to increased interaction between programs as a path to solving problems exposed by an institutional analysis of the county’s juvenile justice system. Black and Hispanic youths were disproportionately represented in the system.
Yet while schools maintain data broken down by race and ethnicity, not all children-related programs within the county and community do the same, according to officials.
“It’s great for schools to have all this data,” said Deputy County Executive Pat Harrison. “But if we can’t look at it as a whole system, then it really limits what we can do about this issue.”
McLaughlin and Harrison are both among the representatives on SCYPT. The county started the group in May 2013 to bring representatives from the government, schools and community onto the same page in their efforts for children.
In December, the team started working on “collective impact,” a buzz-phrase that boils down to getting disparate organizations working together toward a shared purpose. In this case, that shared purpose is creating a structure to undergird the various support systems in place for children in the county.
One of the main sticking points is the need for data that can be compared and shared across organizations. With no standards currently in place, the county will have to jump numerous hurdles before pooling information becomes a possibility.
Panarelli rattled off just a few of the questions that will need to be answered.
“Is the data we’re collecting the same data?” Panarelli asked. “What are the laws and privacy issues around sharing that data? Can we share the data in an easily accessible way?”
SCYPT members said on Wednesday that in order to make headway, the county will need more concrete details on how to achieve this goal.
“If we don’t establish a structure, we’re going to end up in the same place we are now,” said County Supervisor Jeff McKay (D-Lee). “We don’t just want a discussion, we want an action plan.“
The team tasked staff members with developing specific strategies to create a better support infrastructure for children overall and for minorities specifically. These will be considered at upcoming meetings.
“We can say all that we’ve said without anything happening,” said County Supervisor Cathy Hudgins (D-Hunter Mill). “We need to have a real next step.”
Government, schools seek better ways to coordinate dispersed efforts
http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/article/20140227/NEWS/140229338/1117/fairfax-county-officials-look-to-improve-support-systems-for-children&template=fairfaxTimes
Fairfax County government and school officials are pushing to weave a tighter net of support for children.
While county programs promoting children’s safety, health, academic achievement and more abound, these diverse initiatives lack coordination. Officials want to create better connections to keep children from slipping through the cracks.
At a meeting of county’s Successful Children and Youth Policy Team (SCYPT) on Wednesday, School Board member Megan McLaughlin (Braddock) offered the school disciplinary system as a prime example of the problems dispersed efforts can create.
“If a child acts out at school, you cannot take an incident in a vacuum,” McLaughlin said. “You have to be aware of what else is going on in a child’s life. But what is the framework to make that actually happen?”
Right now, if children are struggling with issues such as homelessness or domestic violence at home, a school might not know about it, according to Mary Ann Panarelli, director of the school system’s Intervention and Prevention Services.
But the effort to share and collaborate is about more than just individual cases. Wednesday’s SCYPT discussion focused on how better communication between organizations could improve equity for minority children.
County and school officials looked to increased interaction between programs as a path to solving problems exposed by an institutional analysis of the county’s juvenile justice system. Black and Hispanic youths were disproportionately represented in the system.
Yet while schools maintain data broken down by race and ethnicity, not all children-related programs within the county and community do the same, according to officials.
“It’s great for schools to have all this data,” said Deputy County Executive Pat Harrison. “But if we can’t look at it as a whole system, then it really limits what we can do about this issue.”
McLaughlin and Harrison are both among the representatives on SCYPT. The county started the group in May 2013 to bring representatives from the government, schools and community onto the same page in their efforts for children.
In December, the team started working on “collective impact,” a buzz-phrase that boils down to getting disparate organizations working together toward a shared purpose. In this case, that shared purpose is creating a structure to undergird the various support systems in place for children in the county.
One of the main sticking points is the need for data that can be compared and shared across organizations. With no standards currently in place, the county will have to jump numerous hurdles before pooling information becomes a possibility.
Panarelli rattled off just a few of the questions that will need to be answered.
“Is the data we’re collecting the same data?” Panarelli asked. “What are the laws and privacy issues around sharing that data? Can we share the data in an easily accessible way?”
SCYPT members said on Wednesday that in order to make headway, the county will need more concrete details on how to achieve this goal.
“If we don’t establish a structure, we’re going to end up in the same place we are now,” said County Supervisor Jeff McKay (D-Lee). “We don’t just want a discussion, we want an action plan.“
The team tasked staff members with developing specific strategies to create a better support infrastructure for children overall and for minorities specifically. These will be considered at upcoming meetings.
“We can say all that we’ve said without anything happening,” said County Supervisor Cathy Hudgins (D-Hunter Mill). “We need to have a real next step.”