System Change through Collaboration…Eight Steps for Getting from There to Here

• Author: KAREN CARROLL,JUDGE SHARON S. TOWNSEND
• Date: 01 September 2002
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1755-6988.2002.tb00071.x
• Published date: 01 September 2002

A

“Coming together is a

beginning, talking together

is a process, and working

together is a success!”

— Henry Ford

At the first interagency meet-

ing of the Erie County (N.Y.)

Court Improvement Project

Steering Committee in

October 1999, participants

representing all of the child

welfare stakeholders sat around a large wooden table in

the courthouse with their arms firmly folded.

Conversation was minimal, often accusatory, and “turf”

was rigidly defended.Three years and dozens of meet-

ings later, these same individuals have found common

ground in improving the child welfare system.

Agreement is far from assured but communication is

productive and collegial. How the Court conducts the

business of child welfare has changed dramatically since

this project began—and the beneficiaries have been the

children and families of Erie County.

How did Erie County get from there to here? It

started in February 1998 when the Supervising Judge of

the Family Court and the

Commissioner of the De-

partment of Social Services,

the local child welfare

agency, committed to a

process of long-term sys-

tem change. With the sup-

port of Hon. Judith S.Kaye,

Chief Judge,New York State

Court of Appeals, and

the Permanent Judicial

Commission on Justice for

Children, the Erie County Family Court Improvement

Project was born.

At that time, the number of children in Erie County

foster care was approaching 2,500 in a community of

900,000 residents. Seventy percent of the children were

three years of age or older. Children placed in a fos-

ter/adoptive family could expect to remain in the sys-

tem for six-and-a-half years through the finalization of

their adoption.All agreed that the current situation was

unacceptable, particularly for the children.

In the same year,New York State passed its enabling

legislation for the Adoption and Safe Families Act

(“ASFA”).1The primary goal of ASFA is to prevent chil-

19

Fall 2002 • Juvenile and Family Court Journal

System Change through

Collaboration…Eight Steps for

Getting from There to Here

BY JUDGE SHARON S. TOWNSEND AND KAREN CARROLL, J.D.

ABSTRACT

Family courts and child welfare agencies across the country are charged

with protecting the safety of our children. That mission has become more

challenging with increasing federal legislation and decreasing funding. In

Buffalo, N.Y., the Family Court and the Department of Social Services have

teamed up to respond to this challenge. With minimal additional staffing

and resources, they have led a collaboration of agencies and service

providers to change the way business is done in child welfare. By engaging

each other in an interagency system change effort, the amount of time chil-

dren spend in foster care has been reduced. The collaboration has been able

to accomplish in a relatively short time what no agency had previously been

able to accomplish on its own. The beneficiaries have been the children and

families of Erie County.

Judge Sharon S. Townsend is Supervising Judge of the Erie County Family Court and the Eighth Judicial District of New York. She is Lead Judge

for a Victims Act Model Court of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and a member of the NYS Permanent Judicial Commission on Justice

for Children.

Karen Carroll, Esq., is Director of the Erie County Family Court Improvement Project and Coordinator for the Court Improvement Project for the Eighth

Judicial District of New York. She was formerly in private practice in Washington, D.C. and Maryland.