Transforming Together: Implementation Guide
Tools for Implementation Why Change? California county leaders have a clear
Selby’s progress collapsed. What he needed was continuity of care that followed him home and into his community. California’s CalAIM Justice-Involved Reentry Initiative offers a current model of this in practice, enabling eligible individuals to (pre)enroll in Medi-Cal and begin receiving coordinated behavioral health, medical, and supportive services before release and afterward. Adopting a whole-child lens creates a common language for agencies with different missions, making collaboration more natural and helping professionals do their jobs more effectively. A school counselor addressing absenteeism, a pediatrician treating chronic asthma, or a probation officer supporting reentry can all work better when connected through an integrated ecosystem rather than operating in silos. By grounding this Guide in a whole-child approach, Transforming Together emphasizes not a new framework but a common thread across many, helping counties move from fragmentation toward coherence and integration—so that young people experience consistent, coordinated support across education, health, human services, and other youth-serving sectors. At the end of this Introduction, you will find a more expansive outline of this whole-child approach.
responsibility—and a rare opportunity today— to reimagine how agencies and communities work together to support the well-being of children, youth, and families. The Case for Change
Recent data underscore the urgency: • Youth suicide rates have risen by
nearly 20% over the past decade, with disproportionate impacts on youth of color and LGBTQ+ youth. • Chronic absenteeism surged to over 25% statewide during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. • Behavioral health service requests for children and youth have outpaced the workforce, with some counties reporting waitlists of months. These findings align with the EcoPaper’s analysis of California’s current state, which documents record-high rates of youth mental health needs, rising absenteeism, and months-long service waitlists across the state (EcoPaper, pp. 6–11). Without system change, no single agency can solve these challenges. Fragmented services, siloed funding, and disconnected decision- making leave youth and families struggling to navigate complex systems. A countywide Ecosystem of Care provides the structure to align resources, strengthen the workforce, and improve long-term outcomes for children and youth in the ways they need and want.
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