California System of Care For Children and Youth

We have worked with our state, county, and local partners to better serve children and youth who are receiving services from multiple public programs. Our goal is simple: our programs must meet the needs of the children and youth we serve. These are our collective children, and they all deserve the very best. We recognize that it is our obligation to ensure that the services we are providing are coordinated, timely, and trauma-informed. We must come together as one government to break down silos and build a culture that is focused on delivering services that are person-centered and not program-centered. System Profiles Too often we are focused on delivering specific programs or services within our government silos that we do not take the time to look at the how our programs and services complement one another to best address the needs of the children and youth we are serving. Siloed systems yield siloed responses. As a resource to state, county, and local staff, we developed system profiles that provide an overview of the services offered by our various systems that all serve children and youth. This is our compendium of resources available to children and youth served by are various systems. The system profiles outline how eligibility is determined, what the denial appeal processes entail, how the system interacts with other systems or programs, how information is shared, and how referrals are made. Child Welfare Services Specialty Mental Health Services Rehabilitation Services Regional Center – Early Start Services Regional Center – Lanterman Act Services California Department of Education – Special Education Services California Department of Education – Foster Youth Services AB 2083 MOU Guidance AB 2083 MOU Guidance Information Notice AB 2083 MOU Guidance AB 2083 Technical Assistance Information Notice Over the course of the last year, the state and county teams have made an impressive amount of progress toward implementation of AB 2083. At the local level, early AB 2083 implementation efforts have proven to be very useful as we partner to address the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19. More than ever, meeting the needs of our children and families requires our continued collaboration as interagency teams. In facing the colliding challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting budget impacts, multi-agency partnership will provide crucial opportunities for maximizing the impact that our services and resources have in supporting the safety and wellbeing of the children and families we all serve. Many county and local agencies have made important strides in establishing local interagency leadership teams and developing key components of their MOUs. Many local interagency teams have observed that MOUs provide a critical infrastructure to support effective partnership. To the extent possible, we strongly encourage local partner agencies to continue these efforts. However, given the practical urgencies all of us are attending to during this time, CDE and CHHS have agreed to delay the submission requirements of the finalized MOUs and will establish a new timeline at a future date. State level interagency planning efforts have continued during this time, and the Children and Youth System of Care State Team has begun holding mutually developed monthly technical assistance webinars to support the ongoing planning efforts for local AB 2083 implementation using System of Care principles. More information about how to access these webinars can be found at https://www.chhs.ca.gov/home/system-of-care/. Our Children and Youth System of Care State Team remains dedicated to support county efforts for innovative and collaborative approaches to addressing the many practical and financial challenges of this time. This state team will be initiating two new county/local agency technical assistance processes, one dedicated to assisting with individual cases and the second to support MOU development. A formal communication of these processes is anticipated for release next month. In the meantime, local partners can reach the state team at systemofcare@dss.ca.gov and CDSS continues to provide child specific technical assistance to counties through ccr@dss.ca.gov. Thank you for all your hard work and collaboration on behalf of the child and families we serve, it is making a difference. May 26, 2020