The Office of Children's Mental Health (OCMH) follows a collective impact model to accomplish its work to convene stakeholders around improving the children's mental health system and access to treatment.
Collective impact is the commitment of a group of people from different sectors that come together around a common agenda to solve a specific social problem, using a structured form of collaboration.
There are five characteristics of collective impact:
- Common Agenda – Keeps all parties moving towards the same goal
- Common Progress Measures – Measures that get to the true outcome.
- Mutually Reinforcing Activities – Each expertise is leverage as part of the overall.
- Continuous Communications – Allows a culture of collaboration.
- Backbone Organization – Takes on the role of managing collaboration.
OCMH serves as the backbone for our collective impact work. Our collective impact focus is Social Connectedness of Youth.
OCMH brings together people and organizations across sectors in Wisconsin that are interested in children's mental health. OCMH's Collective Impact Council is a large, broad group that brings people and organizations interested in children's mental health in Wisconsin together to explore innovative ways to address children's mental health in our state.
OCMH's Advisory Council is a children's mental health leadership group that provides guidance to OCMH.
Recent Collective Impact Teams focused on aspects of OCMH's strategic focus of Social Connectedness of Youth. Each developed a strategic action plan to support their goals. We encourage organizations and individuals throughout the state to review these action plans and implement action items that align with your work. See the individual Team Strategic Plans and goals:
- Cultural Identity/Community – Goal: Build community collaborations that provide opportunities for youth to connect to others and their culture, elevating youth voice in this work. See action plan.
- Family Team A – Goal: Family voice is at the center and authentically leads in service planning/delivery. See action plan.
- Family Team B – Goal: Support the early childhood/childcare workforce and professionals serving this population with children's mental health/well-being education and resources. See action plan.
- Supportive Adult – Goal: Equip adults to form supportive relationships with youth, including youth voice in this work. See action plan.
We welcome organizations and people working in areas connected to cultural identity, community, and children's mental health to join this effort for increased collaboration and coordination. For more information about the Children's Mental Health Collective Impact work, please contact us at OCMH@wisconsin.gov.