Office of Community Partnerships

The Office of Community Partnerships (OCP) oversees the agency's efforts to bring child welfare services closer to the community by engaging other community stakeholders in creating a safety net for every child and family in New York City. Through the Community Partnership Initiative (CPI) the Office seeks to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate services to children and families that are need-driven and located within their own communities. We are working to create a healthy New York City in which people and systems with different strengths and perspectives work together for the safety of children and families. OCP collaborates with stakeholders, service providers and other neighborhood networks that were in existence before the advent of CPI to ensure continuity of delivery of services to families and children.

Mission and Guiding Principles

Our mission is to build and support community coalitions that are family focused and provide integrated services that will strengthen the community's ability to keep children safe. The focus is on using familial strengths, resources and unique cultural assets to promote safety, permanency and overall wellness of children and families. Our guiding principles in this endeavor are:

• A strong infrastructure of interagency partnerships
• A strong infrastructure of inter-agency Children’s Services’ partnerships
• Individualized strength-based care practices provided to families
• Culturally competent services and supports provided to families
• Community-based services provided to families
• Child and family involvement in all aspects of the partnerships
• Measures of accountability among the community coalition members.

What is the Community Partnership Initiative?

The Community Partnership Initiative (CPI) comprises coalitions in 11 communities throughout NYC that includes Children’s Services, child welfare agencies, Head Start and Child Care provider agencies and other stakeholders that explore innovative, community-based strategies that can positively impact child welfare outcomes for New York City’s children. Plans are for coalitions that will include all 59 New York City community districts.

Each coalition is designed to improve the well-being of children and families in the child welfare system and reduce the use of foster care services in their community. The coalitions will be forums where members share resources, ideas, information, and referrals. The coalition participants will engage in joint planning, service coordination, training and advocacy in the four tasks of the CPI, which are to:

• Promote innovative approaches to a coordinated service delivery system that will bridge the gap between Head Start, Child Care and community-based preventive services.
• Participate in family team conferences to contribute to decision-making about the needs, services, and safety plans appropriate to particular families’ circumstances.
• Support existing foster and adoptive parents and recruit new ones in communities where they are needed.
• Facilitate visits between parents, children and siblings in foster care.

Children’s Services believes that the relationships formed within the partnership will transform child welfare practice and improve the coordination and delivery of services to families. We believe that coalition participants will harness their collective strengths to significantly impact core child welfare outcomes of safety, permanency and well-being. Through lessons learned from the partnership, the coalition will lead the realignment of child welfare services, ensuring that families, communities and government work successfully together to keep our city’s children safe and thriving.

The first year of the initiative is being evaluated by Chapin Hall, a not-for-profit research and evaluation center affiliated with the University of Chicago. 

Read the CPI Implementation Report (PDF)