Better Outcomes for Babies: Key Practices of Cross-System Collaboration
States achieve better outcomes for infants, toddlers, and families when they work collaboratively across systems and when services are coordinated and connected. Through cross-system collaboration, states have:
- Strengthened referral pathways;
- Increased the number of children and families served by leveraging funding;
- Integrated developmentally appropriate services into settings where families already are;
- Improved the quality of services across sectors;
- Focused on a more efficient use of resources;
- Increased convenience for families to access multiple services in a single location; and
- Met the needs of adults and children at the same time.
Cross-sector work is not easy. It can involve challenges such as getting leadership from different state agencies to come to agreement on a unified model and ensuring that staff from multiple agencies are speaking the same language. Although Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, and Washington pursued different goals, their experiences illustrate some key practices that are important to successful cross-system collaboration efforts.
Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, and Washington are just a sample of the states that have designed cross-system collaboration efforts for infants, young children, and families. While the focus of these efforts differs from state to state, there are key practices that have contributed to their success and can be replicated in other states.
Key Practices of Cross-System Collaboration
- Design and implementation
- Leadership
- Partnerships and collaboration
- Workforce
- Funding
Interested in learning more about early childhood systems building? Watch the recording from our webinar about The Water of Systems Change framework.
