p Tennessee » Systems integration

Agency integration, 2016

• Child welfare

  Tennessee Department of Children's Services (DCS)

  Centralizes child welfare administration services at the state level.

• Integration level

  Single agency integration

• Juvenile corrections

  Tennessee Department of Children's Services (DCS), Juvenile Justice

  Does not centralize administration of delinquency services at the state level.

Coordination, 2014

• Uses for coordination
• Does not use for coordination

• Data sharing

  Facilitated through the use of statewide information systems allowing for consistent data sharing between systems.

• Committees or advisory groups

  Multidisciplinary groups that often have regularly scheduled meetings to brainstorm ways to improve systems integration.

• Formal interagency MOUs

  Collaborative agreements to guide systems integration efforts

• Informal interagency agreements

  Commonly based on historical practice, mutual trust, and recognition of the need to collaborate in order to serve dual-status youth.

• Statute and/or rules

  Rules that mandate systems integration efforts

Summary

In Tennessee, the Department of Children's Services administers child welfare services as well as most community supervision through the Division of Juvenile Justice allowing for consistent data sharing at the state level. Family service workers serve both delinquent and dependent youth and have access to all youth files and information, regardless of youth status upon intake, through a shared data system called TFACTS. The courts, however, do not have access to this data.

If a youth is on local juvenile probation rather than state juvenile probation, the practices vary between counties and the probation department would not have access to TFACTS. One county, Rutherford, participated in a pilot program through Georgetown University's Center for Juvenile Justice Reform Information Sharing Certificate program and has its own set of practices regarding crossover youth.

Reported data

Progressive data, 2014

The Tennessee Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges reports related cases across delinquency, dependency and status offense cases in its annual juvenile court statistics series.  The reporting utilizes diagrams to visually display youth in juvenile court on multiple legal statuses.  In 2014, about 9% of 49,800 youth referred to juvenile court had multiple cases spanning child welfare, delinquency and/or status offense referrals.

View the State of Tennessee Annual Juvenile Court Statistical Report Series »

Report excerpt, State of Tennessee Annual Juvenile Court Statistical Report, 2014 (p. 21).