“If island families find it easier this year to find youth services, they may have the new Community Connections for Youth to thank.The program, run by island’s Health Housing and Human Services Council, brings together eight non-profits with differing goals but at least two similarities – they serve Bainbridge youth, and they’re willing to work together to improve delivery.We’re helping the agencies coordinate, HHHS Director Jan Lambert said. For example, if you need a scholarship to access a service and you have to go to another agency for the money, you don’t want to be bounced around. The agencies need to know how they complement each other and how one fills in where the other leaves off.Features of the CCY program include a web site (www.biccfy.org) and newsletter to be sent islandwide; a monthly director’s forum where agencies meet to share information; focus on the asset-building that enhances community and family attributes found to make young people resistant to destructive behaviors.Perhaps most innovative is the creation of databases and customized programming by Mickey Molnaire, the project’s computer ringmaster, and programmer Ed North of Data Selections. The two merged computer know-how with experience in social services to help translate need to software. They began by talking with agency volunteers to determine need. We take a lot of time with them, Molnaire said. When you deal with a ‘newbie,’ there’s resistance and freaking out.After a few months, they get enthusiastic, though, when they see what the computers can do for them.Some island groups, like Bainbridge Youth Services, were keeping track of services and clients with index cards.According to Molnaire, each agency now will have both a core database and a customized one. CCY will be able to cross-reference information from all the agencies. Without that function, she said, it’s impossible to know if you have 50 kids using 200 services or 200 kids using 50 services.Having such data as the percentage of children in a given agency with parents receiving other social services, will make it possible for the agencies to better plan.Because of the CCY program, Lambert believes, services for local youth will be more coordinated and comprehensive. One of the most critical components in putting the CCY program in place has been inter-agency cooperation, Lambert said. Without that, the program, no matter how innovative, would not work, she said. That speaks volumes for the service community here.Participants in the initiative include Bainbridge Island Child Care Centers; the Teen Center; Bainbridge Youth Services; the Boys and Girls Club; Helpline House; the Housing Resources Board; the Interfaith Volunteer Caregivers; and the YWCA Alive domestic violence program.Taking the lead in coordinating island youth services fell naturally to HHHS, established in 1993 as an advisory board to the city on social service issues. When the Glaser Foundation of Seattle offered funding for development of a program that could serve as a model to coordinate agencies, HHHS applied; grant funding received so far totals $300,000.The program HHHS developed goes far beyond simply compiling a menu of available services to establish innovative relationships between the agencies.There are some truly unique aspects to this model, including the breadth and depth of the tools being created, Lambert said. This model could be expanded to many different agency groupings.Information on the new Community Connections for Youth initiative, and the various youth programs involved, can be found at www.biccfy.org. “