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This paper analyzes policy and practice changes implemented by the child welfare system in Miami-Dade County in response to the COVID-19 crisis. Rapid ethnographic assessment (REA) was used to capture multiple perspectives during a rapidly unfolding pandemic. We identified system vulnerabilities and opportunities for lessening the impact of crises on vulnerable families with children in foster care. The assessment highlights how system fragmentation complicates effective responses to public health emergencies, while the transition to remote services provides insight into ways that traditional accessibility barriers may be alleviated beyond the pandemic. We provide recommendations for improving family experiences and preparing for future crises, envisioning ways that peer specialists, in particular, may offer a model for enhanced family support. This study emphasizes the unique benefits of anthropological theory and applied methods in assessing and improving public sector systems.

High rates of criminal justice involvement among individuals with mental illness have led to collaborative efforts between law enforcement agencies and mental health providers to improve crisis responses and pathways to treatment. The development and implementation of these police-mental health collaborations (PMHCs) have received little attention in the literature, but these processes are crucial in understanding feasibility and sustainability. The PMHC discussed here is an interagency effort to identify individuals involved with law enforcement who have unmet behavioral health needs and engage them in services. Perspectives from leaders, service providers, and clients highlight the importance of developing PMHCs that support individuals with serious mental illness at multiple points, from initial crisis to independent management of treatment. In an environment where police responses to individuals with mental health and substance use disorders are increasingly scrutinized, it is critical to highlight and evaluate ways that behavioral health and law enforcement agencies work together to collaboratively address these problems.

LifeSkills Training (LST) is a popular drug prevention program shown to be effective at preventing youth substance use. The Middle School Health Survey (MSHS) is a questionnaire that was created by the developers of the LST curriculum to measure changes in knowledge and attitudes about drugs and life skills among youth. Despite the widespread use of the MSHS, the measurement quality of the instrument is largely unknown because no prior research has evaluated its psychometric properties. This study evaluated the reliability of scores and factor structure of the MSHS, which was administered to 986 students (Grades 6–8) before the implementation of the LST curriculum. Results indicate that one of the subscales had poor internal consistency reliability as measured by Cronbach's alpha, which is likely due to restricted variability in item responses. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic procedures indicated that a three‐ or four‐factor solution fit the data; however, fewer than half of the items had loadings above the acceptable threshold, indicating that the MSHS requires modification to meet acceptable standards of measurement quality. This paper fills a void in the literature and informs if and which modifications to the MSHS might be necessary.