The Steps to Building Your Tech Collab
Once you’ve pulled a group together, the first few collaborative meetings can be used to collectively develop the mission, vision and objectives of the group. Some specific examples of activities have been found to be productive:
Analyzing systems’ experiences with service access and engagement before the collaborative. Specifically, reviewing examples of access gaps in the continuum of care, areas in need of greater efficiency, and improved outcomes for system-impacted youth and families are crucial to informing cross-sector collaboration.
Identifying facilitators and barriers to prior efforts (if any) to address the challenging experiences identified in the prior activity. These will inform the development of new efforts to improve service access and engagement.
Identifying what resources are needed and what other sectors should be involved to overcome barriers to care.
For example, the first Youth Justice & Family Well-Being & Technology Collaborative evolved such that agencies co-developed solutions to barriers in serving system-impacted youth and families. This collaborative operated as a "think tank" to facilitate brainstorming and idea generation based on the group’s collective experiences.
Step2a: – Identifying Systems’ Key Issues
One key issue that helped the direction of the Youth Justice & Family Well-Being Technology Collaborative arose when co-leader Judge Monica F. Wiley highlighted the lack of access to a youth's full behavioral health history during court appointments. This gap made it challenging to determine the best course of action for ensuring appropriate care. This insight guided the collaborative to focus on leveraging technology to enhance data sharing and communication practices among agencies, ultimately streamlining access to informed care for system-impacted youth and families.
Step2b: – Using Experience to Inform Direction
Lessons learned by your collaborative champions and agencies while serving youth may also be unique in your county, providing valuable insights that inform the collaborative's direction based on these specific needs. This step is where we began to see the power of cross-system collaboration, bringing together diverse agencies and organizations serving system-impacted youth to share successes, challenges, and best practices.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the SF Youth Justice & Family Well-Being Technology Collaborative encountered a county-specific lesson. The "shelter in place" mandates highlighted the urgent need to connect youth and families to care remotely using technology. Champions noted inadequate IT infrastructure within their systems, resulting in delays in distributing necessary technology tools such as laptops and hotspots. This barrier hindered continued contact with legal and behavioral health systems, impacting youth's access to essential services.
For example, a champion from the public school system discovered that district-provided laptops and hotspots were restricted to school-related activities, limiting their use for essential services like meetings with probation officers or attending court hearings. This realization prompted collaborative problem-solving discussions to explore solutions with the school district, aiming to expand access to necessary services using student laptops.
Refer to our additional resources tab for the Step 2 Getting Started worksheet and templates.Please continue to the next lesson to learn how to build working groups for your collaborative and explore specific logistics and practical considerations related to maintaining your Tech Collab.
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Champions: Staff employed by agencies or institutions who emerge as natural leaders and/or are intimately familiar with the inner workings of their employer and “how the system works.”
Shelter-in-place: Legal mandates implemented to protect the public from a health threat. In the acute pre-vaccine phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, most jurisdictions implemented some changes consistent with requiring persons to stay home and reduce contact with others who are a vector of a communicable disease.
System-impacted youth and families: Youth (and their families) who have had contact with the juvenile legal and/or child welfare system(s) and experienced a change in their life as a result of system contact.