The Missing Link in School-Linked Social Service Programs

Abstract

States and local communities have responded to the urgent demand for better coordinated services by creating organizational linkages across schools and human service agencies. In the rush to promote schools as the linchpin for this policy proposal, however, critical issues related to the nature of interactions between families and schools have been mostly ignored by policy-makers and educators. This study of the Kentucky Family Resource Centers explores the effect of family-school interactions on school-linked service programs. The findings suggest the need to connect the dialogue on integrated services to the impulses of reform in school-family-community networks.