Lawmakers hoping to revive program to aid at-risk families
Families, Agencies and Communities Together for Children and Youth at Risk was a casualty of the 2002 round of state budget cutbacks. Lawmakers had to slash programs, take money from the state savings account and freeze employees' wages to balance the bottom line. The law that created it is scheduled to sunset next month.
On Wednesday, a committee of legislators heard the results of some of those tough fiscal decisions, particularly how the elimination of the $5 million in funding for FACT has made it harder to help Utah's most vulnerable children.
"If the workers miss this program, what has happened to these families?" questioned Jan Ferre, a FACT parent representative and an adviser with the Legislative Coalition for People with Disabilities.
Created in 1989, FACT was intended to address the needs of at-risk families by drawing on the collaborative efforts of a multitude of agencies — from schools and health districts to the departments of Workforce Services and Human Services.
FACT was another branch of government coordinating the services of other branches of government, which prompted some lawmakers to question the need for its existence.
But while having agencies "talk" to each other in their efforts to help residents sounds simple enough in concept, the lethargy of bureaucracy can be hard to jump-start, said Rep. David Litvack, D-Salt Lake.
"It would be nice if there were collaboration," he said. "But it doesn't always happen that way."
Beyond giving government the tools to work with each other — and hence the public — more effectively, FACT allowed service providers to shift resources so they were more proactive.
In Tooele County, for example, health officer Myron Bateman used FACT to have a nurse visit three of the area's most at-risk schools every week, visits that often turned up problems that could easily be solved.
A FACT coordinator would then work with the families to tap into the variety of community resources — from private nonprofits who might be willing to step into government agencies that could provide assistance.
"We found if we could target kids in the kindergarten through third grade and solve the problem, it would stop it from becoming even bigger when they are in fifth, sixth or even junior high," Bateman said.
In lieu of having funding to work with, agency directors have signed onto a memorandum of understanding that underscores the need for collaboration and commits them to finding internal ways for better service delivery.
Lawmakers with the Health and Human Services interim committee want to hear back from agency directors about "collaboration" goals to determine if it is necessary invoke the philosophy through statute.
E-mail: amyjoi@desnews.com
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