The New York City neighborhood-based services strategy

The New York City Administration for Children's Services (ACS) instituted a neighborhood-based services system through the realignment of all foster care, preventive, and protective services along community district lines. ACS, with its community partners, also formed neighborhood-based networks to improve service coordination and collaboration among key community stakeholders and to shape a multisystem strategy tailored to each district informed by child welfare data. Based on analysis of neighborhood-specific census tract child welfare data, ACS initiated the Community Partnership to Strengthen Families project to address the disproportionate number of foster care placements originating from a small group of high-need communities, including Manhattan's Central Harlem. This article describes examples of specific strategies based on the Central Harlem experience.