This Appendix tells the stories of the study sites and how they have gone about linking children and families in the welfare system to much-needed services. In order to convey the full flavor of these experiments in service delivery, the first four stories are told at considerable length, while the remaining stories are more briefly summarized. In general, the longer cases are based on the most extensive interview evidence and raise a particularly wide array of themes.
The cases reflect the situation at the time of the site visits in the summer and fall of 1989. All the sites have experienced some change and development since that time, and in Massachusetts and California in particular, tight budgets have substantially affected the shape of the program. Selected important changes since the site visits are noted in the text, but there has been no effort to bring the cases completely up-to-date.
Introduction. More than any other of the sites, Oklahoma's Integrated Family Services (IFS) system is deliberately designed to change the way in which service delivery institutions work at the same time that it delivers services to individual families. Operated by the Oklahoma Department of Human Services in 9 counties across the state, IFS provides intense, short-run (three- to six-month) case management to families in crisis, many of whom are AFDC recipients. Through "team staffings" with other service deliverers, IFS case managers link families up to a wide range of
-125-
