In many communities, the treatment of children in instances of child abuse and neglect is not being addressed sufficiently. Due to the lack of communication and absence of formal coordinating mechanisms between the representatives of law, child protection services, medicine, education, mental health, substance abuse treatment, and essential community agencies, a very uneven delivery of services is provided to these children and their families in stress. Problems occur when the community's services do not seem to be as coordinated as they should. The characteristics of problems that occur in communities include unclear rules of interaction, lack of agreement on the system's purpose, ambiguous roles of professionals, an unclear and changing arena of action, and lack of mechanism for surfacing or resolving any of these dilemmas. Four key conceptual models for community action on child abuse and neglect reports have been identified as child protection, medical, legal, and interdisciplinary models. Each of these approaches has a unique orientation to investigation, case planning, treatment, use of court action, and level of involvement in prevention activities. 80 references