ABSTRACT
Service integration refers to the amount of connectedness among providers that makes services to families more coordinated and responsive. Professionals in education and human services have recently become more aware of the numerous, complicated needs of children and their families-needs that often go beyond a single program, agency, or organization. Yet, the services various agencies or organizations provide for the same child and family often tend to be fragmented and at times inaccessible. Recognition of this problem has encouraged various endeavors to coordinate or integrate services provided to individual children and families (Richardson, 1973). Dating back over three decades, programs have engaged in a variety of interagency initiatives (Agranoff, 1991; Hassett & Austin, 1997; Kagan, 1993; Konrad, 1996; Lawson & Sailor, 2000; Waldfogel, 1997). Most of these initiatives have sought to create, in the phrasing of the General Accounting Office, “methods to unite or link the services provided by different agencies to serve the same population” (1992, p. 2).
