Program Implementation

Tips to Implementation: When implementing this type of program, States should consider:

1. Working with local service groups to outsource and deliver needed services to youth and families, both for cost-effective reasons and for credibility.
2. Developing partnerships and collaborations between State and local, as well as between community and faith-based, organizations.
3. Form a statewide leadership committee. Tennessee started a statewide kinship committee composed of legislators, caregivers, social workers, state government department leaders, law enforcement, faith-based organizations, and other community leaders. This committee later merged with the state mandated Community Advisory Boards (CABs) to better utilize the time and resources of the shared members.

Keys to Success:

• Partnerships and collaborations between State and local, as well as between community and faith-based organizations, are a hallmark of RCP. For example, in Nashville, the groups involved in RCP met with community and faith-based organizations to map the services offered to youth and families to learn where their strengths and gaps were. Such collaboration is often new and results in better alignment of services for these youth and families.

Successes: The major success of this program is increasing family stability and preventing children from coming into State custody. RCP promotes greater community buy-in and support for at-risk children and families. Further, RCP encourages collaborations at many levels. RCP represents not just a highly successful client model, but also a program with significant savings of State dollars. For example, without this program, children possibly would be child protective referrals, which is significantly more expensive for the State than the RCP program.