Service Coordination: A Guide for Families
Part 4 - County Service Coordination Mechanism

What is the county service coordination mechanism?

Important! The county service coordination mechanism is your county's way to get services to children and families in a way that is simple and organized. Your county's FCFC must write a plan for its county service coordination mechanism. Family members who are on the county FCFC help to write this plan.

What must the county service coordination mechanism include?

The county service coordination mechanism must specify:

• what a family must do, or what a county agency must do, to tell the FCFC when a child or family needs service coordination. When a family member or a county agency tells the FCFC that a child needs services, the county calls that a "referral." The county service coordination mechanism must also say how a judge can make a referral for a child who has been in juvenile court.
• what the FCFC must do to tell families and agency workers about individual family service coordination plan meetings and invite them to the meetings. The FCFC must make sure that school systems know and are involved in meetings.
• how the FCFC makes an individual family service coordination plan. The county service coordination mechanism also has to explain how the county decides which agency is responsible for giving the child and family the services they need.
• what a family has to do to ask for a meeting to make a new individual family service coordination plan, or to talk about a plan the family already has.
• that a family can invite an advocate or other support people to any meeting.
• a procedure requiring a family service coordination plan meeting for children who receive services through the FCFC service coordination mechanism and who have been placed out of their home, or are being considered for out-of-home placement. The meeting must take place: 1) before a non-emergency out-of-home placement or 2) within ten days after an emergency out-of-home placement. The family service coordination plan must outline how the county FCFC members will jointly pay for services, where applicable, and provide services in the least restrictive environment.
• what the FCFC has to do to keep track of what happens to children who get help from the FCFC, and to make sure that these children keep getting what they need.
• what the FCFC has to do to keep information about the child and the child's family private and confidential.
• what the county must do to find out a child's and family's strengths and needs. The county service coordination mechanism has to explain which agency is responsible for doing the assessment. The county service coordination mechanism also has to make sure that families have a chance to be a part of the assessment.
• a schedule for when the county service coordination mechanism must start to work for families and children, and when the county has to do the different activities in the mechanism.
• that the FCFC has to follow the rules of the Help Me Grow program for infants and toddlers (birth through age two) for any children who are eligible for that program.
• what the FCFC has to do when families or agencies don't agree with the FCFC on how to do something. This is called the "dispute resolution process." The FCFC has to tell families about the dispute resolution process. See Part 6 - FCFC Dispute Resolution Process for more information on the dispute resolution process.

Does the FCFC have to follow the county mechanism?

Important! Your FCFC has to do what the county service coordination mechanism says. The FCFC must develop the individual family service coordination plans according to the standards of the county service coordination mechanism.

Do families have a say in how the county mechanism works?

The county FCFC includes three family members. Important! These family members help to write the county service coordination mechanism and have a voice in how service coordination works in each county.

You can talk with the members of the FCFC and tell them your ideas about how to get county agencies to work together as a team to get services for children. If you are a family member who is on the FCFC, you should talk with other families to learn their ideas and then give those ideas to the other FCFC members.

The following are selected parts of county service coordination mechanisms that work to support families and children.

• Reaching All Family Groups: "The service coordination plan [mechanism] embraces a multi-cultural approach ... and recognizes that strengths and needs must be assessed from a culture sensitive perspective."
• Finding Out About the Family From the Family: "[The] intake process will focus on the child or youth in the context of the family unit and environment .... the family will be encouraged to express and define strengths and needs and to identify positive outcomes."
• Family-Friendly Service Plans: "The Family Service Plan format will be user friendly, both for the family and the service providers."
• Families as Partners: "Members share a common philosophy of respect for ... and importance of the family, and ... importance of the family and service provider partnership."
• Solving Disputes: "Member organizations [of the FCFC] will ensure that any formal dispute process is supportive of the family no matter how serious the matters in dispute."

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