The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has been working with researchers, human services agency leaders, and persons with lived experience to visualize, describe, and document models of prevention within human services. To support this goal, ASPE sponsored the Case Studies in Supporting Prevention through Human Services Program Integration project to explore innovative prevention approaches that integrate human services, including preventing child welfare involvement, promoting housing stability and preventing homelessness for youth and families, and increasing the use of economic supports such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).
This brief highlights the efforts nine case study sites across the U.S. made to identify and center families’ strengths and needs while coordinating access to resources and services—such as housing, physical and mental health care, food and nutrition, workforce development, and economic supports. It explores how sites integrated services to be responsive to participants’ needs. Key themes throughout this brief include:
- Sites emphasized that engaging with participants in collaboration and coordination of eligible services was a critical foundation for developing trusting relationships with participants and identifying their strengths and needs.
- Well-being and protective factors were a focus of sites’ program assessments. The assessments incorporated multiple aspects of program participants’ well-being, including health, family functioning, economic security, and connection to culture and community.
- Integrating programs and services enabled sites to focus on the early identification and anticipation of individuals’ and families’ needs. To forge successful partnerships between service providers, sites worked to establish a shared vision for service integration and practiced frequent, open communication.
- Sites were able to address participants’ immediate needs by using flexible and responsive implementation models, such as a no-wrong-door approach to service enrollment, and by providing direct cash assistance and concrete supports.
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