Continued from History of the Center

The State of Idaho applied for a cooperative agreement with the federal government to develop a system of care for the state, entitled “Building On Each Other’s Strengths,” (BOEOS) in April 2002. BOEOS was crafted to support the implementation of the statewide system of care in three critical areas. These areas are technical assistance, evaluation, and social marketing.

Technical assistance directly supports the building of infrastructures at all levels of the statewide system and the delivery of services to children and families. BOEOS provided support for a regional mental health conference, the launch of a process to develop a statewide early childhood system of care network, and a series of workgroups to develop a comprehensive plan for children’s mental health among the Native American population in Idaho. 

A statewide system of care conference for children’s mental health was held in May 2004.  In partnership with IDHW, the Center provided planning and logistical support in this event, which hosted attendance of just under 350 family members, council members, community partners and professionals.

The key to providing the evaluation results necessary for data based decision- making is the collection of meaningful data in a consistent manner. Building on Each Other’s Strengths features a participatory evaluation component. This means that families, councils, and leaders at all levels of the system are directly involved in evaluation of service delivery, outcomes, satisfaction, and systems development.  In addition, the project proposed a local level evaluation based on the key indicators identified by the Idaho Council on Children’s Mental Health and individual councils at the local and regional level.

To support this fundamental process, the project provides a local evaluation specialist in each regional area to collect the data identified by families, local and regional councils, and the national evaluation. The cooperative agreement includes a requirement to participate in a national level evaluation. The national level evaluation requires the use of specific measurement instruments for a smaller segment of the families served, with their cooperation.  Results of the national level evaluation are intended to allow a comparison between all participating communities across the United States that have received a systems of care cooperative agreement. 

Since 2003, IDHW and the Center have worked cooperatively with Northwest Nazarene University and Boise State University implementing the evaluation process.  The Center contracts with the local evaluation specialists and provides a Research Director to the project.