This year, California made an unprecedented investment in the whole child dedicating over $12 billion to shore up those systems over the next five years. However, local education agencies and their social sector partners may encounter barriers to supporting students and families within the state’s current system of separate programs and funding sources.

A new guide, designed for local education agencies, is part of a collaborative effort by child-serving experts in California to help the state further its steps toward creating an effective, integrated, comprehensive, school-based child-serving system.

Developed by Breaking Barriers, California Alliance of Child and Family Services, Santa Clara County Office of Education, and WestEd, the guide provides LEAs with information on several major whole child initiatives: the Adverse Childhood Experiences Aware Initiative, the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative, the Children and Youth System of Care, community schools, early childhood initiatives, and expanded learning.

With information on how these various initiatives can be integrated with one another and how to partner with other local organizations and agencies to make them sustainable, LEAs can coordinate these services—and break down silos at the local level—while working within the state’s current system.

The guide lays the groundwork for local leaders to coordinate these initiatives with a single, shared goal: to facilitate school-based comprehensive health and wellness services for children and families by leveraging multiple funding sources and connecting education and health infrastructure systems.

Visit our Supporting California’s Children Through a Whole Child Approach: A Field Guide for Creating Integrated, School-Based Systems of Care resource page to learn more.