Linking Local Services: Coordination in Community Centres

Abstract

Better coordination among local services is a common goal in the human services. There are many ways in which services might be coordinated: one way is to co-locate agencies in a community centre. This paper compares three multiservice centres in Adelaide. Administrative, program and service links occur most frequently where the agencies in a community centre share the same purposes, serve a similar clientele, and engage in complementary activities. However, human service agencies seldom share client service procedures such as referral and assessment Co-location in a community centre does not change this pattern. Professionals working in the human services prefer to coordinate services for individual clients through informal networking.