Since the beginning of the 1990's, public bodies, professional organizations, and business groups have been calling for greater interagency coordination to achieve a more comprehensive approach to providing services for children and families at risk (Soler, Shotton, and Bell, 1993). Central to interagency coordination efforts is the establishment of interagency information-sharing networks or programs. More specifically, collaboration and information sharing may provide for multidisciplinary, multiagency approaches to comprehensively address problems posed by juveniles who are at risk of or have already committed serious delinquent or criminal acts. Information-sharing programs also present a way to further partnerships between agencies that are currently engaged with each other to serve these same juveniles, their siblings, or their families. These partnerships, therefore, work to preserve the family unit by addressing the needs of the juvenile, the sibling, and/or the entire family as the need arises.

Information-sharing programs make it possible to coordinate juvenile justice services that foster more informed, appropriate decisions regarding juveniles. An information-sharing program would, for example, provide a teacher who believes a student may be at risk of becoming involved in gang or drug activity with a method for notifying the appropriate service providers who could intervene before the student engages in such activities. Similarly, such a program might require probation officers to furnish information to teachers about the conditions of a juvenile's probation so that they could monitor the student's behavior and be aware of any risks the student might present to others in the classroom. Sharing information will allow service providers to more efficiently determine the level and type of services juveniles need by avoiding redundancy of service and conflict in treatment approach. A central database of information regarding delinquent, at-risk, and dependent juveniles would eliminate the need for multiple agencies serving a single juvenile to collect the same information and might also eliminate the need for each of these agencies to obtain a release to gather the information needed to serve that juvenile.

Additionally, sharing information can facilitate services and treatment, improve decisionmaking and feedback concerning juveniles, and ensure that children do not fall through the gaps in civil society into the world of drugs, gangs, and juvenile delinquency. For example, such a program would allow the formation of a treatment team to address the needs of a juvenile who has been adjudicated delinquent for threatening a public official. Each member of the team—probation, mental health, and juvenile justice—would provide the appropriate services to that juvenile based on shared information. Similarly, information sharing can improve a system participant's ability to make case- or management-level decisions, which ultimately may significantly improve the treatment of juveniles and decrease or eliminate offending behaviors. For example, educators—people who frequently see the first warning signs of delinquency and/or have critical information about youth involved in the juvenile justice system—can help justice and other youth-serving agencies develop effective intervention strategies by sharing information (Medaris, Campbell, and James, 1997).

Information sharing is an effective tool for those who deal with at-risk and delinquent juveniles. Agencies can use a great many methods for sharing information. As Soler and colleagues (1993, p. 47) suggest: "Written releases, interagency agreements, court orders, memoranda of understanding, statutory authorizations for information sharing, as well as designations of information not considered confidential, all present agencies with abundant opportunities to work together to provide better services for children and families."

This Bulletin offers an overview of what is necessary to establish and maintain an interagency information-sharing program. It presents strategies and sources for the development of information-sharing programs, details the functional requirements for an effective and efficient program, and identifies policy concerns and key issues in the implementation and maintenance of information-sharing programs. Agencies building collaborative information-sharing programs must consider several key issues, including possible legal restrictions in Federal and State laws, the need for an evaluation system to determine the effectiveness of the information-sharing program, and potential barriers to successful programs.