Transforming Together: Implementation Guide
About this Guide This Implementation Guide is a companion to California’s Children and Youth Behavioral Health Ecosystem Working Paper (“EcoPaper”), commissioned by CalHHS and developed by Breaking Barriers. Developed with input from across California, the EcoPaper set forth the vision, rationale, and necessary components of a reimagined behavioral health whole child ecosystem. This Guide is designed to implement those recommendations. Where the EcoPaper explains what must change and why, the Implementation Guide focuses on how to transform. It translates the EcoPaper’s recommendations into practical steps counties and communities can take, uniting existing initiatives and whole child efforts to maximize sustainable whole child impact. Federal shifts and reductions in funding create new pressures on local systems—but they also underscore why integration is no longer optional. Counties that coordinate across agencies can do more with existing resources
and improve outcomes for children and youth. Building from the EcoPaper, this Guide demonstrates how to turn those pressures into opportunities for sustainable system change. Despite federal shifts and reductions in funding, the imperative to integrate resources and unite around children and youth is stronger than ever. This Guide demonstrates how, building from the EcoPaper, we can take immediate steps to align leadership, braid funding, and strengthen cross-sector systems so that children, youth, and families experience care as seamless, equitable, and whole. The starting point is clear: California cannot achieve better outcomes for children and youth if essential services remain fragmented. The EcoPaper highlighted the risks of siloed programs; this Guide shows the path forward. The diagram below illustrates this fundamental shift—from individual, disconnected services toward integrated systems of care.
Moving From Siloed to Integrated Services
Public Health
Public Health
Human/Social Services
Mental Health Services
Human/Social Services
Mental Health Services
Education
Justice/ Corrections
Justice/ Corrections
Education
Tribal Representation
Regional Centers
Tribal Representation
Regional Centers
Individual and fragmented agengies often operation in scarcity of resources, many initiaves focus on the same students and youth.
Integrated systems are whole and interlocking systems that heal communities.
5
Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator