On Wednesday, June 22nd, 2022, the Stoneleigh Foundation in collaboration with Georgetown University’s Center for Juvenile Justice Reform hosted, “Improving Outcomes for Youth Involved in Multiple Systems of Care,” the first webinar in a series focused on the Multi-Systems Integration Pilot Program.
The Multi-Systems Integration Program, currently being piloted in Delaware and Erie counties, draws upon the lessons and best practices of two national-model initiatives:
- The Pennsylvania Care Partnership, a service delivery approach that builds partnerships across systems to create a broad, integrated process for meeting families’ needs, and
- The Crossover Youth Practice Model, an organizational approach designed to support youth who are fluctuating between the child welfare and youth justice systems.
Throughout the webinar, the panelists, which were key stakeholders in Delaware and Erie counties in Pennsylvania as well as the Director at the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, discussed how vital it is to have collaboration amongst the differing systems that youth are involved in, especially for those multi-system involved youth.
Panelists noted how collaboration between these systems can assist in preventing youth from involvement with the Juvenile Justice System in the first place and agreed that this pilot program provides a huge opportunity to address the racial/ethnic disparities in the Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice systems. It allows for data to be collected and examined, specific to location, evidently offering answers for why these disparities are occurring and how to fix them. In closing, the panelists made sure to note that this program is not an end all fix but it brings all the four systems together (the Child Welfare System, the Juvenile Justice System, the Education System, and the Behavioral Health System) and provides trainings to help these systems better serve their youth.
By Taylor Savage, Policy Intern
