Comprehensive services for children and families: The federal role

Comprehensive services for children and families bring together an array of formal services and informal supports and make them available and accessib le at the community level with a goal of improving the well-being of childr en and families. Since the early 1970s, federal policy has moved between pe riods of support for integrating services and support for separate and disc rete programs. Three streams of change in the federal role in comprehensive services are traced over the past 10 years: (a) a change from supporting t he process of integrating services to providing incentives for achieving re sults for children and families, (b) a change from focusing on service prov iders to focusing on customers, and (c) a change from supporting projects t o changing the systems that serve children and families. Despite these chan ges and the devolution of responsibility for many social programs to the st ates, sere is still a need for a federal role in supporting system change t o serve children and families. The federal government can be most effective when a high-level agency takes on a leadership and coordinating role in su pport of comprehensive community efforts.