Family Support Model: Integrating Service Delivery in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

As we enter the new millennium, traditional social work values and interventions can effectively improve the fragmented and often inaccessible service delivery systems that children and families utilize. While social workers have always taken the lead in emphasizing the strengths perspective, empowerment of clients, a bio-psychosocial approach, community-based services, and services across the life span, human service agencies and providers have not uniformly embraced these concepts. Community agencies often duplicate services, lack user-friendly or accessible resources, and often provide only fragmented services to children and families. This article examines a Family Support Model that embraces and integrates social work values and concepts in efforts to provide quality, community-based, client-driven, and outcome-based services to children and families. While the Family Support Model originated within public administration and social policy circles, the natural compatibility between social work values and the model's key components are presented. The author advocates for the replication of the model in other communities and identifies the considerations and challenges inherent in this type of collaborative effort.