TLP/CFCIP Collaboration: Challenges and Opportunities

Chafee Foster Care Independence Programs (CFCIPs) and transitional living programs (TLPs) both help youth move toward self-sufficiency. They work with young people with similar developmental needs. They offer many of the same program components, such as life skills training, counseling, and job readiness training. And they both have limited resources.

Why, then, don’t they work more closely together?

Discrete eligibility requirements may be part of the puzzle. Homeless youth are not eligible for CFCIP services unless they become a part of the foster care system, which is a complicated process and not always in the best interest of the young person involved. Youth in foster care are not eligible for TLP services unless they are discharged from care and find themselves homeless, which, of course, is not the desired path for any young person.

Administrative differences also pose some challenges to the two programs working together. TLPs, typically private, nonprofit organizations that provide shelter care and other services to runaway and homeless youth, have historically considered themselves to be an alternative to the traditional child welfare or juvenile justice systems.

CFCIPs, funded and operated by public departments of child welfare and social services, are subject to the constraints of any local government agency. They sometimes cannot act as quickly because there are many layers in the approval process.

Despite these challenges, there are plenty of opportunities for collaboration. At Volunteers of America in South Dakota, for example, youth in the CFCIP and TLP receive life skills education, employment assistance, and other support services together, in a coordinated effort.

“These young people haven’t necessarily taken the same path, but now they are dealing with somany of the same challenges,” says Stephanie Graeb, independent living program director at Volunteers of America. “It makes a lot of sense to integrate the two programs.”

Here are some ideas:

• Put together and disseminate a contact list of the TLPs and CFCIPs in your State. You can’t collaborate if you don’t know each other! TLP providers are posted on the Family and Youth Services Bureau Web site (www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/fysb). A list of State independent living coordinators can be found at http://www.nrcys.ou.edu/yd/state_pages.html.
   
• Become experts in each other’s program requirements and restrictions. Graeb suggests that TLPs ask for a copy of the State’s CFCIP plan and really understand the ins and outs of the Chafee Foster Care Independence Program.
   
• Attend stakeholder meetings. Volunteers of America’s TLP staff are currently giving feedback on young people’s service needs in South Dakota and providing input on the State’s next 5-year plan. At the same time, State independent living coordinators can actively seek input from community youth service providers.
   
• Get to know the independent living coordinator in your State. That way, when there’s a question about eligibility or getting services for a particular young person, you can easily pick up the phone and ask.
   
• Sit down together and hash out what a potential TLP/CFCIP collaboration might look like, no strings attached. You may want to consider goals and activities in the areas of direct services, available and needed resources, staff development, funding needs and potential sources, and policies and procedures. Develop a collaboration workplan.
   
• Conduct regular collaborators’ meetings to discuss program updates, successes, and barriers, refine workplans, and evaluate collaboration activities.
   
• Assess the training and technical assistance needs of collaborators and set a plan to address them. Consider offering joint training to CFCIP and TLP program managers and staff. At Community Youth Services in Washington, for example, both CFCIP and TLP staff learn to administer the Ansell-Casey Life Skills Assessment. This allows programs to give uniform assessments to youth in both programs and communicate with each other in the same language.
   
• Get buy-in from all parties, including the people who will actually be doing the work, such as case managers and line staff.