Communities are struggling to address public health and safety problems that no one system or sector has the resources, ability, or responsibility to solve alone. Successful change thus hinges on intentional and meaningful collaboration at many different levels, including 

• Between states and localities (counties, municipalities); 
• Across branches of government (executive, legislative, judicial); 
• Within and across systems (behavioral health/health, criminal justice, housing, etc.); 
• Across sectors (public and private); and 
• With community members (including people with behavioral health needs who are in contact with the justice system). 

This type of collaboration is not easy. It requires support and guidance to navigate and align multiple perspectives, priorities, and resources. States can help by bringing together cross-system leaders to understand the most pressing needs, establish shared goals, and identify opportunities to support—and fund—local collaborative responses to improve public health and safety. 

Key state policy strategies to strengthen and formalize cross-system collaboration include the following: 

• Issuing a clear state-level mandate that demonstrates and formalizes a statewide commitment to a shared public health and safety goal (e.g., reducing the number of people with behavioral health conditions in local criminal justice systems) 
• Establishing a new, or repurposing an existing, collaborative body that brings together state and local stakeholders across multiple systems, sectors, and vantage points 
• Supporting the creation of local councils or similar entities to advance cross-system strategic planning and systems change 

Dive deeper with the State Policy Tool.  

Effective locally driven state policymaking hinges on understanding the nature and extent of different needs, what strategies can best address them, how well these strategies are working, and what services and supports are available locally. This data must also encompass qualitative information drawn from the perspectives of people who are directly impacted by health and public safety policies. However, current data on behavioral health needs of people in the criminal justice system is often disjointed, and many communities lack the necessary data infrastructure. 

Key state policy strategies to improve local capacity to collect, use, and share data include the following: 

• Issuing common definitions across agencies to identify a target population and establish shared metrics for tracking progress toward common goals 
• Reviewing and improving state policies related to information sharing 
• Supporting infrastructure and capacity to help communities collect, analyze, and share data at the local level 

Dive deeper with the State Policy Tool. 

As communities work to build comprehensive, collaborative systems with needed care and services, they often face persistent funding and resource gaps. To fill these gaps, many communities try to combine a range of inconsistent and restricted funding sources. This approach places a significant administrative burden on individual agencies and organizations and often fails to cover the full range of supports needed in a given community. These funding challenges have intensified in recent years with budget shortfalls and competing priorities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Key state policy strategies to help local communities address persistent funding gaps include the following: 

• Providing consistent, flexible funding that can be used to support community investments 
• Leveraging federal resources, especially those focused on health and housing 
• Forming partnerships to help secure financial participation from the private sector 

Dive deeper with the State Policy Tool

Learn more about financing the future of local initiatives.