j Oklahoma » Systems integration

Agency integration, 2016

• Child welfare

  Oklahoma Department of Human Services, Child Welfare Services

  Centralizes child welfare administration services at the state level.

• Integration level

  One or all are decentralized

• Juvenile corrections

  Oklahoma Office of Juvenile Affairs (OJA)

  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 Oklahoma, the Department of Human Services (DHS) administers child welfare services and much of the state's juvenile justice services are operated by the Office of Juvenile Affairs (OJA).  An important exception exists for locally funded and operated juvenile justice services in four independent Juvenile Bureaus serving Oklahoma (Oklahoma City), Tulsa, Canadian and Comanche counties.

No formal, sustained data sharing occurs between OJA and DHS, nor the four independent Juvenile Bureaus and DHS. However, Oklahoma sent a contingent to the Georgetown University's Center for Juvenile Justice Reform, Crossover Youth Practice Model (CYPM) symposium in 2012. The four state agencies which sent representatives are subsequently embarking on dual status youth data integration across administrative data sets, including OJA, DHS, the Department of Corrections (DOC) and the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse (DMHSA). The new effort is the 'Pinnacle Plan' product of the CJJR training and will use data and decision point mapping to revisit state policies that were created when the Office of Juvenile Affairs was created that require joint case management. The research is being led by DHS planning and research analysts.

As state-level coordination research and planning efforts are occurring in 2014, the Tulsa County Juvenile Bureau is starting its own dual status youth coordination effort designed to have specialized social works on both the delinquency and child protection agency sides working collaboratively. The effort is intended to focus initially on joint case management and a common case plan. The initial project design is also intended to eventually pair specialized services for this population.

Reported data