Ross Timothy, Conger Dylan, Armstrong Molly
Vera Institute of Justice, New York, NY 10279, USA.
Child Welfare. 2002 May-Jun;81(3):471-94.
Gaps in service coordination between child welfare and other child-serving agencies are well documented. This article examines the gap between the child welfare and juvenile justice systems and discusses a program, Project Confirm, designed to reduce the problems associated with this gap. Project Confirm aims to improve cooperation between juvenile justice and child welfare agencies to prevent the unnecessary detention of arrested foster children in secure facilities. The program's design is outlined, and implementation statistics and government partner perceptions of the program in its first year of operations are provided. The article also identifies future challenges to implementation and discusses the broader implications of the program. In making this appeal for coordination and collaboration among public agencies, I'm not talking about pro forma integration efforts-I'm not talking about memoranda of understanding or top-level reorganizations that have autonomous agencies vaguely reporting to a single box labeled "human services." Rather, I'm talking about the much more challenging objective of achieving real working partnerships at the front line. (Nelson, 1998, p. 6)
儿童福利机构与其他儿童服务机构之间的服务协调差距已有充分记录。本文探讨了儿童福利系统与少年司法系统之间的差距，并讨论了一个名为“确认项目”的计划，该计划旨在减少与此差距相关的问题。“确认项目”旨在改善少年司法机构与儿童福利机构之间的合作，以防止被逮捕的寄养儿童被不必要地拘留在安全设施中。文章概述了该计划的设计，并提供了实施统计数据以及政府合作伙伴在该计划运营第一年对它的看法。本文还确定了实施过程中未来面临的挑战，并讨论了该计划的更广泛影响。在呼吁公共机构之间进行协调与合作时，我所说的并非形式上的整合努力——我指的不是谅解备忘录或高层重组，即让各自主机构模糊地向一个标有“人类服务”的单一部门汇报。相反，我所说的是在一线实现真正有效合作关系这一更具挑战性的目标。（纳尔逊，1998年，第6页）
