Authors:

• Cassandra Favager, National Leader for Human Services, Deloitte New Zealand
• Martin Joyce, National Social Care Leader, Deloitte Canada
• Alexis Martin, National Leader for the Family and Child, Deloitte Canada

Meeting the needs of children and families takes an ecosystem. Community, education, health, housing, and justice all have a part to play in a child’s well-being. And increasingly the providers of child services are recognizing this—shifting their approach toward a coordinated, whole-of-system response.

A whole-of-system response can reach across the many interventions children and families may need access to, moving past a reactive, protection-oriented model to one focused on prevention and early intervention. It works to eliminate siloed public service offerings that often see children and families falling through the cracks.

While there is no one-size-fits-all, a solid whole-of-system approach tends to have the following defining features:

• Families and children have equitable access to universal services, from primary health care to education to housing. These are delivered in a child-centered manner and provided to those most at-risk and excluded.
• Targeted, resourced services focused on prevention and early intervention to respond when needs first arise, including navigation and representation for families.
• Stabilizing interventions for those with complex needs that prevent further harm. These interventions—including mental health, drug and alcohol support, and wraparound family supports—are focused on prevention and provide a pathway to sustained outcomes.
• Sufficient incentives, tools, and information to work collaboratively with children and families and the community and organizations that support them.
• Effective accountabilities and outcomes-based monitoring, holding the whole system to account for child-centered responses and improving the outcomes of those most at-risk and excluded.

As new tools and technologies emerge, there is an opportunity right now to strengthen a whole-of-system response. This includes making the most of the wealth of data now available to agencies that can help them better understand both early warning indicators and the touch points with the greatest impacts.

Better use of data can also help providers work with under-served populations and understand the barriers to access they experience—and the critical points in the process where children and families tend to drop out. Understanding the long-term well-being outcomes for children can help organizations not only develop more effective solutions but also assess the impact of service models and embed practices for continuous improvement. And data and reporting can help hold the system to account for delivering to and for children and families.

Even with new technologies, building and maintaining a whole-of-system response can require an extraordinary focus on collaboration across the many agencies that need to be engaged. But child services providers are in a unique position to help lead and coordinate that collaboration—drawing on their role as an advocate as well as their know-how in accessing services across often-siloed government agencies.

Child service providers are uniquely placed to lead and coordinate collaboration across sectors – not just because of their deep understanding of family needs and effective support models, but because their work is grounded in advocating for what’s best for children. Their insight into navigating complex and often fragmented systems means they can help ensure children receive the right support before problems escalate. Most importantly, by driving preventative approaches now, child service providers can help reduce the need for crisis interventions later – ensuring more children thrive, and fewer fall through the cracks.

To learn more about how Deloitte is working to improve human services, join us at the European Social Services Conference for our panel discussion, “Protecting Children: Tales of a Changing Landscape.” Also, check out the Deloitte Global series, Promising Futures: Envisioning a Brighter Tomorrow for Children’s Social Services.