Children and Family Futures (CFF) offers training and technical assistance to tribes, states, counties, courts, and community-based agencies to improve cross-systems collaboration and improve outcomes for children, parents and their families affected by substance use and mental disorders and who are involved in child welfare services. Training and technical assistance is guided by CFF’s Comprehensive Framework, which was developed over several decades of experience working with hundreds of collaborative partnerships and distills the complexity of collaboration into concrete areas of action.

Child welfare workers, courts, substance use treatment providers, healthcare providers, and community partners need to work together to identify substance use and mental disorders and provide timely access to assessment and engagement in treatment services to prevent child removal and support child permanency and family well-being. No one agency can tackle this issue on its own—it requires a coordinated response that draws on the talents and resources of many agencies. Building and sustaining collaborative relationships across these numerous systems can be challenging and require a dedicated effort to develop connections, communications, and collaborative capacities. Children and Family Futures supports tribes, states, counties, and communities to implement practical steps and strategies to ensure structure for cross-systems collaborative teams and implement effective communication protocols and collaborative practice innovations that improve services and family outcomes.