h New York » Systems integration

Agency integration, 2016

• Child welfare

  New York Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS)

  Does not centralize child welfare administration services at the state level.

• Integration level

  One or all are decentralized

• Juvenile corrections

  New York Office of Children and Family Services, Division of Juvenile Justice and Opportunities for Youth (DJJOY) 

  Does not centralize administration of delinquency services at the state level.

Coordination, 2014

• Uses for coordination
• Does not use for coordination

• Data sharing

  Facilitated through the use of statewide information systems allowing for consistent data sharing between systems.

• Committees or advisory groups

  Multidisciplinary groups that often have regularly scheduled meetings to brainstorm ways to improve systems integration.

• Formal interagency MOUs

  Collaborative agreements to guide systems integration efforts

• Informal interagency agreements

  Commonly based on historical practice, mutual trust, and recognition of the need to collaborate in order to serve dual-status youth.

• Statute and/or rules

  Rules that mandate systems integration efforts

Summary

In New York both juvenile justice services and child welfare are decentralized and administered by counties. The Office of Child and Family Services (OCFS) provides oversight of child protection service offices organized in county social service agencies. OCFS additionally administers placement and reentry services for delinquent youth and supports local Community Multi-Service Offices (CMSO) to deliver both placement prevention and community reintegration services for state wards returning to the community. On the delinquency side, the Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) provides oversight for locally administered adult and juvenile probation departments.

With this much complexity OCFS and DCJS have an important coordination role. Specifically, planning data that bridges child welfare and juvenile justice agencies are drawn from the local operations and informally shared by OCFS and DCJS during bi-weekly Governor's Cabinet cross-agency coordination meetings. New York's Strategic Planning Advisory Committee is a standing committee of the Executive branch which additionally shares planning data across a broad range of criminal justice and human services agencies in the state. Youth level data concerning dual status youth are primarily available in New York's State Automated Child Welfare Information System (SACWIS).

At the local level OCFS provides a key coordination support role through its CMSOs. The CMSOs have intake staff that are alerted when a youth who belongs to a family with an open child welfare case or a child protection history is the subject of a delinquency complaint. CMSO case manager are on the front line of helping to coordinate an alternative response for dual status youth that keeps local social services engaged and the youth out of secure placements. When a youth is committed to OCFS the CMSO case managers coordinate the placement of the youth and the sharing of information between their local counterparts in probation and social services.

Reported data