HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 10172006 - SD.3 a
FHS # 2 Contra
TO: Board of Supervisors COStc1
FROM: Family and Human Services Committee
sra coiiK'�
County
DATE: October 17, 2006
SUBJECT: OVERSIGHT OF SERVICE INTEGRATION
SPECIFIC REQUEST(S)OR RECOMMENDATION(S)&BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION
Recommendation:
CONSIDER accepting report from the Employment and Human Services, Service Integration Team
Program Manager on the activities and achievements of the Contra Costa County Service
Integration Program, as recommended by the Family and Human Services Committee.
Fiscal Impact:
None
Background:
Contra Costa County's Service Integration Program is a multi-disciplinary collaboration of staff from
the County Departments of Employment and Human Services, Health Services, Probation, County
Administrator's Office, Mount Diablo Unified School District, West Contra Costa Unified School
District, community-based organizations and neighborhood residents.
This report summarizes some of the Service Integration Program's key innovations and
contributions to improving the wellbeing of Contra Costa children, families and communities. It
presents highlights of the Service Integration Program's activities and accomplishments since
establishment of the program in 1994; new initiatives currently being piloted in response to local
community needs; participant outcomes used to evaluate effectiveness of the program; and a
description of the Service Integration Program's efforts to balance its budget and diversify its funding
base to maintain services during these difficult budget times.
CONTINUED ON ATTACHMENT: X YES SIGNTURE:
_ RECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR RECOMMENDATION OF OARD COMMITTEE
��APPROVE OTHER
SIGNATURE(S): lJ
DeSAULNIER v4F -
MARKL GLOVER
ACTION OF BOARD ON 10/11/~ APPROVE AS RECOMMENDED OTHER
VOTE OF SUPERVISORS
I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A TRUE
UNANIMOUS (ABSENT ) AND CORRECT COPY OF AN ACTION TAKEN
AND ENTERED ON THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD
AYES: NOES: OF SUPERVISORS ON THE DATE SHOWN.
ABSENT: ABSTAIN: QQ
ATTESTED v CC" ( r7
JOHN CULLEN,CLERK OF THE BOARD OF
SUPERVISORS AND COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR
Contact Person: Dorothy Sansoe(5-1009)
CC: CAO -
HSD d» .
EHSD
BY:� r l— �— DEPUTY
REQUEST' TO SPEAK FORM S_
(THREE (3) MINUTE LIMIT)
Co7isorm andplace it in the box near the speakers' rostrum before addressing the Board.
Name: J U I Ie- IHDMA5ST 1?'pAeAee5PQn&T►v phone: C�1� 5� a5 a
Address: �fOS 01 I lbw 4a-56 1�pad City: 10111t
(Address and phone number are optional; please note that this card will become a ublic record kept on file
with the Clerk of the Board in association with this meeting) n
I am speaking for myself or organization: �A_14 PC)I n t ��. N. �1 ci4ma l a I T-
CHECK ONE: S
, ] 1 wish to speak on Agenda Item # S 3 Date: )C41 �o
My comments will be: WGeneral ❑ For ❑ Against
❑ I wish to speak on the subject of:
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I
Please see reverse for instructions and important information i
Z. VVlILIC3
TO: Board of Supervisors 2 Costa
a
FROM: Family and Human Services Committee
�osrq�a K County
DATE: October 17, 2006
SUBJECT: OVERSIGHT OF SERVICE INTEGRATION D'3
SPECIFIC REQUEST(S)OR RECOMMENDATION(S)&BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION
Recommendation:
CONSIDER accepting report from the Employment and Human Services, Service Integration Team
Program Manager on the activities and achievements of the Contra Costa County Service
Integration Program, as recommended by the Family and Human Services Committee.
Fiscal Impact:
None
Background:
Contra Costa County's Service Integration Program is a multi-disciplinary collaboration of staff from
the County Departments of Employment and Human Services, Health Services, Probation, County
Administrator's Office, Mount Diablo Unified School District,West Contra Costa Unified School
District, community-based organizations and neighborhood residents.
This report summarizes some of the Service Integration Program's key innovations and
contributions to improving the wellbeing of Contra Costa children,families and communities. It
presents highlights of the Service Integration Program's activities and accomplishments since
establishment of the program in 1994; new initiatives currently being piloted in response to local
community needs; participant outcomes used to evaluate effectiveness of the program; and a
description of the Service Integration Program's efforts to balance its budget and diversify its funding
base to maintain services during these difficult budget times.
CONTINUED ON ATTACHMENT: A YES SIGNTURF:
D,
RECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR RECOMMENDATION OF OARD COMMITTEE
=APPROVE OTHER -
SIGNATURE(S): _
MARK DeSAULNIER FED RAL GLOVER
ACTION OF BOARD ON APPROVE AS RECOMMENDED OTHER
VOTE OF SUPERVISORS -
1 HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A TRUE
UNANIMOUS (ABSENT ) AND CORRECT COPY OF AN ACTION TAKEN
AND ENTERED ON THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD
AYES: NOES: OF SUPERVISORS ON THE DATE SHOWN,
ABSENT: ABSTAIN:
ATTESTED - .
JOHN CULLEN,CLERK OF THE BOARD OF
SUPERVISORS AND COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR
Contact Person: Dorothy Sansoe(5.1009)
CC: CAO
HSD
EHSD
TO: Family and Human Services Committee
Supervisor Mark DeSaulnier
Supervisor Federal Glover
FROM: Paul Buddenhagen, Program Manager, Service Integration Program
SUBJECT: Report on the Contra Costa County Service Integration Program
DATE: October 2, 2006
RECOMMENIDATION
ACCEPT the attached report on the activities and achievements of the Contra Costa County Service
Integration Program.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Established in 1994, the Contra Costa County Service Integration Program co-locates County and non-
profit agency service providers and community residents in neighborhood-based centers to provide
accessible, coordinated public services tailored to meet the specific needs and goals of low-income
families,while also engaging families in resident-driven efforts to revitalize their communities. The
success of this program's Service Integration Team (SIT) model stems from the synergistic
relationship between its two key program components: (1) integrated case management services and
(2) neighborhood-building activities.
The Service Integration Program is widely recognized as a leader in the development of successful
strategies that improve outcomes for low-income children, youth and families. Key Service
Integration innovations include:
Developing new paradigms of inter-agency collaboration and creating necessary tools to
support this work, including cross-agency information-sharing protocols, an integrated case
management system and an effective family conferencing model.
br Redefining_County-community partnerships to help fundamentally shift the way in which our
public agencies work with residents of low-income communities.
Launching new initiatives and strategies, such as free tax preparation services (Volunteer
Income Tax Assistance), community career centers, employment-focused service delivery and
the Verde Involving Parents Program.
h' Serving as a local model of public sector"systems change" by implementing performance-
based results and new strategies for leveraging public and private investments.
The success of the Service Integration model is evident in the measurable improvements achieved in
the lives of the children, families and communities it serves. Recent examples of Service Integration
Program outcome measures include:
The Service Integration Program's Verde Involving Parents (VIP) Program increased school
attendance at North Richmond's Verde Elementary School from 88.9% in 1999/2000 to 92.8%
in 2005/06.
1v For the 2006 tax season Bay Point Works' staff prepared and filed 196 tax returns, saving low-
income community residents more than $20,000 in filing fees, while helping put $255,148 in
federal tax refunds back in the pockets of working poor Bay Point residents, including
$106,183 in Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) refunds.
Due to the effectiveness of this model,the Service Integration Program has received local, state and
national awards; has been the subject of articles and research studies; and frequently is represented by
Service Integration staff at conferences as a"best practice" model.
The Service Integration Program raised more than$450,000 in public and private grant awards and
contracts in FY 04/05 & FY 05/06. So far this fiscal year Service Integration has raised over$400,000
and is actively working to increase these revenues. As public and private budgets continue to constrict
in upcoming years, the obstacles associated with maintaining the Service Integration Program will
remain great, despite the unquestionable value of our services. We will persist in our efforts to seek
new and creative approaches to support this important program.
BACKGROUND
Established in 1994, the Service Integration Program is a multi-disciplinary collaboration of three
Contra Costa County departments (Employment& Human Services, Health Services and Probation),
two school districts, community-based organizations (CBOs) and neighborhood residents. The Service
Integration Program's two Family Service Centers were designed to take an innovative approach to
working with families that historically have posed some of the greatest challenges to service providers:
families involved in two or more county programs who live in the County's most socio-economically
disadvantaged communities. This unique model co-locates County and non-profit agency service
providers and community residents in neighborhood-based centers to provide accessible, coordinated
public services tailored to meet the specific needs and goals of low-income families, while also
engaging families in resident-driven efforts to revitalize their communities.
The success of the Service Integration Program model stems from the synergistic relationship between
its two key program components: (1) integrated case management services and (2) neighborhood-
building activities. The integrated case management services component places cross-disciplinary
Service Integration Teams (SITS) comprised of Public Health Nurses, Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Counselors, Employment Specialists, Probation Officers, School Family Resource Workers,
Social Workers and other specialists in Family Service Centers located in Bay Point and North
Richmond, two Contra Costa neighborhoods with among the highest concentrations of families in
greatest need of services.
Based on the premise that the challenges facing low-income families and communities are inter-
related,these teams embrace a holistic approach. The teams focus on the whole family unit, rather
than just the individual, and build upon family strengths to provide services driven by and customized
to each family's unique circumstances. In addition to providing families with more personalized
services in the communities where they live,this multi-disciplinary approach produces a
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comprehensive, consistent strategy for each family, reducing conflicting expectations and demands
made by different programs.
The Service Integration Program's two neighborhood-building projects, Bay Point Works (BPW) and
the North Richmond Empowerment Collaborative (NREC), were born out of the recognition that an
integrated team of county and community-based organization staff was a necessary, but not sufficient
mechanism for addressing the full range of challenges facing the communities of Bay Point and North
Richmond/San Pablo. BPW and NREC were designed to harness the talents and skills of
neighborhood residents in the process of revitalizing their communities. This strategy has galvanized
the creation of highly innovative and successful programs (designed specifically by and for community
members)that support and build upon local cultures and traditions and fill critical gaps in the formal
service delivery system. Perhaps most important of all, the neighborhood-building projects have
expanded the long-term capacity of the Bay Point and North Richmond/San Pablo communities by
developing the skills of numerous neighborhood residents and providing opportunities for them to give
back to and build stronger connections in the neighborhoods where they live.
BPW's community-building efforts started with the establishment of the Bay Point Community Career
Center in May 1998 and have expanded steadily from there. Every year since, BPW has strengthened
its services and, in turn, helped more and more Bay Point residents get jobs, keep jobs and move up the
job ladder. In recent years, BPW has offered a number of supportive services that go well beyond the
traditional employment services package, such as free income tax preparation for low-income Bay
Point workers to help them capture the benefits of the Earned Income Tax Credit(FITC) and free
structured activities for the young children of"working poor"parents during school holidays.
NREC's community-building activities also initially focused on boosting neighborhood employment.
Early successes included reinstituting night bus services in North Richmond, creating several in-home
family day care centers and establishing the North Richmond Community Career Resource Center,
which continues to serve neighborhood residents after having been spun off to a CBO in 2000. After
making a number of strides in the area of employment,NREC decided to take on an issue of great
importance to neighborhood residents: low levels of student success and parental involvement at Verde
Elementary School. This focus resulted in the establishment of NREC's Verde Involving Parents
(VIP) Program, which has played a critical role in initiating and sustaining the renaissance of Verde
Elementary School over the past six years.
This report to the Family and Human Services Committee of the Board of Supervisors summarizes
some of the Service Integration Program's key innovations and contributions to improving the
wellbeing of Contra Costa children, families and communities over the past 12 years. This report then
presents highlights of the Service Integration Program's activities and accomplishments.
SERVICE INTEGRATION PROGRAM AS A LEADER IN "REST PRACTICES"
Since its inception over a decade ago,the Service Integration Program has emerged as a leader in the
development of successful strategies that improve outcomes for low-income children, youth and
families. The Service Integration Program reaches far beyond the traditional "agency service
provider" model by involving low-income residents as integral partners in the process of addressing
the needs and aspirations of the neighborhoods where they live. This small, inter-agency program
draws down flexible funding from private foundations and outside contracts to complement more
traditional federal, state and county funding streams. As a result, Service Integration has managed to
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maintain a flexibility and inventiveness unusual to public sector agencies. The program has launched
programmatic, fiscal and organizational innovations that have laid the foundations for the development
of more effective and efficient services to children, families and communities countywide.
Due to the effectiveness of the Service Integration model, Contra Costa County has received local,
statewide and national recognition and has been the subject of research papers and studies, including:
North Richmond Gets Its Buses Back: How a Poor Community and an Urban Transit Agency Struck
Up a Partnership (Institute of Governmental Studies Press, University of California, Berkeley, 1999),
which focuses on NREC's successful strategy for partnering with A.C. Transit to bring night-time bus
service back to North Richmond; and A Case Study on North Richmond(Abt Associates, on behalf of
the Ford Foundation, 2004), which highlights the VIP Program as a successful model of school-
community revitalization. The latter study credits VIP as being "largely responsible for the major
improvements in school attendance,parent involvement and student behavior that have taken place at
Verde..."
The Service Integration Program also continues to share information with people interested in learning
more about our unique model. In February 2006, Alameda County Superior Court Judge David
Krashna, heading the Oakland Think Tank, invited SIT to present the VIP model. Judge Krashna is
presenting a truancy improvement plan resolution to the Oakland City Council recommending that the
VIP model be studied and replicated in Oakland schools to reduce truancy and strengthen
communities.
Some of the Service Integration Program's major areas of innovation are summarized below:
Inter-Agency Collaboration: Service Integration has been at the vanguard of Contra Costa's
efforts to develop effective models of collaboration and cross-program and -agency partnerships,
paving the way for greater collaboration countywide. Service Integration has developed new
organizational structures to support this collaboration at the management oversight level (e.g., the
inter-agency Service Integration Executive Oversight Committee), as well as at the frontline
service delivery level(e.g., multi-disciplinary teams). The infrastructure and tools established
through Service Integration's partnership model (e.g., shared supervision,team decision-making,
etc.) and the relationships that have formed as a result have laid the groundwork for and
facilitated the success of many other inter-agency initiatives.
County-Community Partnerships: Service Integration has redefined relationships between
public agencies and residents of low-income neighborhoods while developing a viable model for
bridging the all too common gap between agency "service providers" and the communities they
serve. In 1997, in the wake of Federal Welfare Reform, each of the SIT sites engaged
neighborhood residents in planning efforts to determine how these communities could succeed in
this new policy environment. These efforts resulted in the establishment of two innovative
community-building projects, BPW and NREC.
Cross-Ageney Information-Sharing: Working together, key Service Integration partner
agencies (i.e., EHSD, CCHS, Probation, CAO) and County Counsel developed Contra Costa's
first informed consent agreement for integrated services in 1994. This confidentiality release
gives permission for Service Integration staff from participating agencies to share information to
better serve families. This"Agreement to Participate" form served as a model for more recent
integrated services programs, such as the mental health"Spirit of Caring" Initiative, and
contributed to the establishment of the Service Integration Program as Contra Costa's first
official "Multi-Disciplinary Children's Services Team".
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Outcomes/Performance-Based. Accountability: Service Integration spearheaded Contra Costa
County's early efforts to implement performance-based accountability. In the early- and mid-
1990's, the inter-agency Service Integration Management Team developed a set of meaningful
outcomes that could be used to evaluate the success of the Service Integration Program by
concretely measuring the program's impact on the lives of children and families. Service
Integration staff has diligently tracked these program results since 1996. Service Integration's
novel approach led to wider adoption of outcome measures by other County programs and laid
the groundwork for the 1997 establishment of Contra Costa's Children and Families Report
Card. More recently, the July/August 2004 issue of the Children's Advocate included an article
entitled "Measuring Success: Evaluation Strategies Help Family Support Programs Prove They
Make a Difference". This article featured the VIP Program's success at measuring the impact of
its work in terms of improved school attendance and increased revenue to the school district.
Leveraging Public and Private Investments: Service Integration has designed its fiscal strategy
around encouraging private foundations and other funders who do not typically support county
ventures to invest in innovation in the public sector The Service Integration Program raised more
than $450,000 in public and private grant awards and contracts in FY 04/05 & FY 05/06. So far
this fiscal year Service Integration has raised over $400,000 and is actively working to increase
these revenues. Through its strong track record of capturing measurable results,promoting
public-private partnerships and engaging community residents in the process of bettering their
neighborhoods and their lives, Service Integration has helped to convince many new funding
partners that investments in the public sector can galvanize sustainable individual, family,
neighborhood and systems change.
Holistic, Integrated Case Management System: The Service Integration Program pioneered the
County's first integrated case management process. Focusing on the whole family unit, rather
than just the individual, this process allows SIT staff to build upon family strengths and provide
services driven by and tailored to each family's unique needs. Service Integration created the
Family Assessment Record to support the development of comprehensive plans for addressing
issues in a range of interdependent life domains, such as child care, child and adult health,
transportation, school, employment and other social supports. First developed in 1995, this tool
and the SIT case management process as a whole have been refined over the years to support
continuous improvement and better integration of Service Integration services.
Family Conferencing: The Service Integration Program's "Family Conferencing" model
brought a new way of doing business to Contra Costa County. Service Integration began
conducting inter-agency case conferences with client families in the mid-1990s. The success of
our family conferencing model helped open the doors for similar family-focused models in
Contra Costa, such as "Wraparound"in Children's Mental Health and"Team Decision Making"
in Children and Family Services.
Employment-Focused Ser-vice Delivery: In 1995, prior to the passage of Welfare Reform,
Service Integration was the first County program to implement an employment-focused service
delivery model. The Service Integration model transitioned "eligibility workers" into
"employment case managers" and tapped into the resources of all disciplines to move welfare
recipients into the workforce. Due to the effectiveness of this model, the Service Integration
Program was invited to co-develop EHSD's redesign plan for restructuring its eligibility
determination function into an employment-focused service delivery strategy.
Free Tax :Preparation Services (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance): In 2003, the Service
Integration Program piloted the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) free tax preparation
model at the Bay Point and North Richmond SIT sites. Based on the success of this'pilot,
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Service Integration played a lead role, along with a number of other partner agencies, in
launching a countywide VITA campaign in 2004: Earn It!Keep It!Save It!Contra Costa.
Community Career Centers: In May 1998, the Bay Point SIT's BPW project established the
Bay Point Community Career Center, a forerunner to the County's One-Stop Career Center
system. In January 2000,NREC established a second Community Career Center in North
Richmond. The Career Centers introduced community-based employment resources delivered
via a neighbor-helping-neighbor model to the communities of Bay Point and North Richmond.
The Bay Point Career Center, which is still under the auspices of BPW, has enrolled over 5,000
members over the past seven years and receives over 7,600 visits annually.
Verde Involving Parents (VIP): Service Integration's VIP Program, established in February
2001, has reaped impressive results. VIP is a team effort of parents, students,teachers and
county agencies and non-profit organization staff who live and work in North Richmond. Their
goal: get our children to school—every day, on time and ready to learn. Due to the dramatic
impact of VIP on student attendance and parent involvement at Verde Elementary School, the
West Contra Costa Unified School District(WCCUSD) invested $125,000 in the VIP Program
during the 03/04 and 04/05 school years. During the first half of 2004, at the request of
WCCUSD Superintendent Dr. Gloria Johnston,the VIP staff and managers met with principals
and staff from four low-performing elementary schools to offer technical assistance and training
on the VIP school improvement model. In summer 2004, the VIP Program presented the
WCCUSD with a Training Handbook to support its VIP replication efforts. Later this year, we
hope to replicate VIP at Helms Middle School in San Pablo.
NEW SIT INITIATIVES
One of the Service Integration Program's strengths is its flexibility to respond to local, community
need in a supportive and outcomes focused way. This dexterity has allowed SIT to pilot many new
ideas that can then be replicated in other locations. Some of the new ideas and programs that SIT is
currently operating or working hard to bring to Contra Costa County follow:
Fathers—The Service Integration Program is currently negotiating with researchers at UC
Berkeley, Yale, and the Office of Child Abuse Prevention to pilot an African American
fatherhood program aimed at improving father/mother relations and thereby increasing
positive outcomes for children. Talks are underway and hopefully this program will be up and running
in North Richmond within a couple of months.
Girls—This is our fourth year of offering the Girls Group in North Richmond. Designed to
°improve girls' academic results, social development, and self-esteem,the girls group remains
popular- SIT received more than twenty requests from girls ages 9-12 to participate in our
group this year. For the first time we are collaborating with Community Access Ticket Service,
which will provide the girls with free tickets to a wide range of the Bay Area's best cultural and
entertainment experiences—something near at hand, yet inaccessible to the girls in many of our
communities.
8 Systems—Bay Point Works isproud to be Contra CostaCounty's first
' tr�Az"-,&EASTBAYWorks Affiliate Site. This relationship will greatly enhance the
collaboration between BPW and the One-Stop sites in Contra Costa, thus helping
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create a more seamless and easy to navigate system for job East Bay job seekers.
n f > , ,Kids—Based on the Verde Involving Parents (VIP)Program's success at improving
t attendance rates, improving the school environment, and increasing parent involvement, the
�'V'W Service Integration Program was asked by the S.H. Cowell Foundation to submit a full
proposal to expand the program to Helms Middle School. We are hopeful that before the end of
the year we will be hiring 3 parents of children at Helms to begin running the HIP program.
Or Mentors - This pilot program is collaboration between SIT and the County Office of
Education. The SIT program is providing space, supervision and curriculum, while the
County Office of Education Youth employment program provides hourly pay to the teens.
This after school program involves four adolescents (ages 8-12) who will be matched with four teen
mentors (ages 16-18). The mentors will focus on the academic progress of mentees and social
emotional wellness throughout the school year. The program design is a spin off of our summer
activities group. The teens will receive supervision by our clinical mental health worker, MSW interns
and the SIT Coordinator.
ACTIVITY HIGHLIGHTS AND OUTCOMES
A critical aspect of the Service Integration Program is its emphasis on tracking participant outcomes.
Through outcomes, SIT staff members are able to evaluate their effectiveness based on measurable
improvements in the lives of the children, families and communities they serve. The outcome data and
activity highlights that follow are primarily for the 2005 calendar year
The Service Integration approach emphasizes earlier intervention and greater client contact, allowing
SIT staff to get involved with families before situations reach crisis levels. In addition, SIT staff
members typically stay involved with families longer, providing"informal"services to ensure that
families are able to sustain these higher levels of functioning. Through intensive contact with other
community service providers, SIT staff is able to keep a closer eye on participant families to make sure
that children are obtaining needed health care services, attending school and are living safely in their
own homes. Family functioning outcomes indicate the continued success of this approach:
O A notable percentage of children served by the SIT child welfare workers have been successfully
maintained in their homes. In 2005, 98% of the 323 children served by the North Richmond
SIT's two child welfare workers remained at home and 96%of the 315 children served by the
Bay Point SIT's child welfare worker remained at home.
O During 2005, Bqy Point SIT youth on probation attended school on average 74% of school days
each month. North Richmond SIT youth on probation attended school on average 60% of school
days each month.
O In 2005, 99%of the SIT clients served by the Bay Point Public Health Nurse (PHN) and 92% of
the SIT clients served by North Richmond PHN had a"medical home".'
O The Service Integration Program's team-based approach to transitioning individuals with severe
substance abuse and mental health problems into treatment continues to yield positive results. In
these fields in general, entry rates into treatment tend to be extremely low. We are proud that 17
out of 27 SIT clients referred to substance abuse and mental health(SAMH)treatment by our
SAMH Counselor during the FY 05106 successfully entered treatment.
' Having a"medical home" is defined as having medical insurance and/or having a regular medical provider.
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MAINTAINING MUCH NEEDED SERVICES IN CHALLENGING 'TIMES
The Service Integration Program has an unwavering commitment to delivering high-quality,
comprehensive services to residents of Bay Point and North Richmond/San Pablo—even in the face of
diminishing public funds.
Current fiscal difficulties do continue to pose serious challenges to the Service Integration Program.
The Service Integration Program's costs are spread across the budgets of three county departments
(Employment and Human Services, Health Services and Probation), as well as in a separate budget
unit for the Service Integration Program. Staff members assigned by their departments to work at one
of the program's Family Service Centers remain within their department's budget(although their work
is jointly supervised by the Service Integration Program and their"home" departments). The public
deficit has created increasing pressure on the County departments that have permanent county staff
out-stationed at the SIT sites to return to a more traditional, centralized service delivery system.
To compensate, and to develop new services, Service Integration Program staff has worked hard to
raise funds via outside grants, contracts and awards. The Service Integration Program has brought in
outside funding totaling more than $2,000,000 during the past six years, and continues to work hard to
bring outside private and public revenue into Contra Costa County's poorest communities. The
projected FY 06/07 budgets for BPW and NREC total approximately $508,000. Despite the many
benefits of this grants-based funding strategy, this approach requires an enormous investment of
administrative resources, taking time away from program improvement and expansion efforts.
As public and private budgets continue to constrict in upcoming years, we know that the obstacles
associated with maintaining the Service Integration Program will remain great, despite the
unquestionable value of our services. We will persist in our efforts to seek new and creative
approaches to support these important services.
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