Advancing Collaborative Practice Between Substance Abuse Treatment and Child Welfare Fields: What Helps and Hinders the Process?

This study explores factors that facilitate and impede the process of developing successful collaboration between child welfare, substance abuse treatment, and dependency courts based on in-depth qualitative interviews with professionals (N = 49) from five California counties. Findings describe specific preconditions, organizational changes, and operational factors in the development of successful collaboration. Study participants also described factors that hindered collaborative practice, such as problems in cross-systems communication and fragmentation of services, as well as strategies that were employed to address or minimize these problems. Findings underscore the value of “lessons learned” from communities that have established successful collaborative programs, policies, and practices.