Guiding Principles
The Children and Families Commission of San Luis Obispo County will bring programs together to provide high quality, outcome-based, integrated services to families in San Luis Obispo County. The Commission is dedicated to: 1) mobilizing the community around critical issues affecting young children and their families and identifying approaches that begin to meet their highest or broadest needs; 2) considering opportunities for leveraging or matching revenue with other private, local, state or federal programs; 3) considering long-range financial planning based on the expectations that county allocations will become a dwindling revenue source; and 4) considering research findings in selecting the most effective programs and strategies.
The Children and Families Commission’s decision-making is guided by mutually agreed upon standards. The Commission will:
- Recognize throughout its endeavors the value and respect due to children as individual human beings, and embrace a comprehensive view of child development that encompasses physicality, cognition, behavior, social interaction, and emotions.
- Develop a comprehensive, integrated service delivery system of early childhood development services.
- Engage in an ongoing, dynamic and evolving strategic planning process to meet the changing needs of all communities.
- Ensure community participation in the planning process, including ethnic/cultural, income and geographic diversity.
- Support programs to reduce the effects of adverse health risks such as secondhand smoke, other substance abuse and family violence on infants and young children.
- Build upon existing resources and research to avoid duplication of effort during strategic plan development.
- Respect the cultural diversity among us by providing outreach to all communities in San Luis Obispo County, including families with special needs or those socially isolated.
- Encourage systems of care where services and projects are integrated into easily accessible child and family centered systems.
- Ensure positive outcomes for children and their families by evaluating program impacts on children and families.
- Support efforts to maintain program services and research by leveraging and/or obtaining additional matching grant funds for program enhancement and sustainability.
- Support access to services for all families in an environment of support and respect.
- Encourage and support the development of each community's capacity to provide integrated services.
