The challenge of integrating children's services

Australian general practitioners’ perspectives on their role in well-child health care

“…Furthermore, Gardner argued that while effective communication is pertinent in delivering services, it is equally important to have access to and awareness of a variety of available services [32]. …”

The nature and impact of collaboration and integrated service delivery for pregnant women, children and families

“…On the other hand, not everyone is convinced of the value of current efforts to develop integrated services. Gardner (2006), for example, argued that while effective cooperation and communication are considered crucial to delivering services, it is equally important to have a good range of available services, time available for practitioners to deliver the services and skills to offer strong partnership work with families. Furthermore, Leutz (1999) noted in the USA, the most productive experiments with integrated services have been those that involve coordinated management and clinical integration, not those aimed at complete structural integration.…”

Social Support, Social Justice, and Social Capital: A Tentative Theoretical Triad for Community Development

“…With the exception of programmes such as Family Group Conferencing (Marsh & Crow, 1998) whereby community supporters are utilised as helpers for families in crisis and to a lesser extent with mentoring projects (Tierney et al, 1995), not enough has been developed of this potential. Conversely, rather than seeing positive potential for community, it can be deemed to be negative and a causal factor in issues such as local vandalism, crime, family deprivation and child harm (Gardner, 2006). Research in Ireland on what parents need from services highlights the need for more positive engagement with local communities as sources of self-help.…”

“…The importance of ongoing low-level (sometimes hidden) regular social support is often lost in favour of'crisis helping' particularly in respect of those experiencing adversity (Gilligan, 2008). For example, daily long-term social support to elders suffering with Alzheimer's disease in a local community may get less notice than once off activated support to parents who find themselves in 'crisis' (Ghate & Hazel, 2002), or swift interventions for children at risk of maltreatment (Gardner, 2006).…”

“…Such support is found from with a set of players most typically comprising family, friends, neighbours and to lesser extent helping professionals (Pinkerton & Dolan, 2007). Whereas informal relationships can sometimes be harmful, particularly within families (Gardner, 2006), overall and for the most part key social supporters are community-sourced and located. Within the domain of human services, the function of informal social networks sources including community has tended to be overlooked (Crowe & Allan, 2000).…”