The IFS Website is a resource where you can find information about how the Agency of Human Services is working towards integration and coordination of services for children, youth and families.
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
~African Proverb
Our Vision: Vermonters work together to ensure all children, youth and families have the resources they need to reach their fullest potential.
Our Mission: Interagency planning efforts bring state government and local communities together to ensure holistic and accountable planning, support and service delivery aimed at meeting the needs of Vermont’s children, youth and families.
The Agency of Human Services and communities have been integrating, collaborating and supporting the coordination of services for children, youth and families for decades.
Act 264, passed in 1988, required that human services and public education work together, involve parents and coordinate services for better outcomes for children and families. The act developed a coordinated system of care so that children and youth with a disability receive appropriate educational, mental health, child welfare, juvenile justice, residential, and other treatment services in accordance with an individual plan.
Then in 2008, an AHS initiative, Integrating Family Services began which included consolidation of over 30 state and federal funding streams into one unified case rate with the intent of integrating services for children and their families around providing services, supports and treatment earlier to prevent more intense needs, to achieve better outcomes and spend funding more efficiently.
The goals of IFS are:
a) to improve the delivery of services and ultimately the health and well-being of pregnant/postpartum women, infants, children and young adults and
b) advance maternal and child health and safety, family stability, and optimal healthy development through the transition to adulthood.
This is achieved by:
- Providing flexible funding that allows service providers to meet family needs as they become known.
- Bringing children’s, youth and family services together in an integrated and seamless continuum.
- Offering families supports and services based on need rather than program eligibility criteria.
- Shifting the focus from counting clients and service units to measuring the impact of those services.
The Agency of Human Services is committed to maintaining the gains that have been made in the IFS regions and those regions continue their work supported by DMH, DCF, DAIL, VDH and DVHA.
On January 1, 2019 a statewide effort that shifted all Designated Agencies to bundled case rates was successful. To find out more about this effort please click here.