Texas Bar Journal • June 2026

Effective Communication

Improved outcomes for youth and families through systems collaboration.

Written by Aurora Martinez Jones

As lawyers and judges, we are in the business of people. In child welfare law and juvenile justice, those people include children and families. When those children and families are dually involved in both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, those systems and how they interact then also becomes our business. Fortunately, as lawyers and judges, we use words every day and in all we do to move our positions, arguments, and rulings forward. Words are our art. The very crux of systems collaboration requires professionals in systems to communicate better about the people they serve. The legal profession creates great opportunity to build such a collaboration.

One of the most difficult aspects of representing youth and families who are involved in multiple systems is being proficient at each of those systems. Even though we commonly discuss dual status youth as youth who are involved with the child welfare system and the juvenile justice system, there are often actually many more systems at play, including the education, health care, and housing systems. Ideally, all of these systems impacting the same people would intuitively be able to connect. However, our reality is quite the opposite. Systems collaboration is one of the biggest barriers we see for our youth and families in child welfare and juvenile justice, even those who are not dually involved.

SYSTEMS COLLABORATION STARTS WITH LEADERSHIP
It easily becomes difficult to believe that we, as lawyers charged with competency in our fields, can achieve competency in every aspect of a youth’s or family’s life. Many lawyers are able to specialize in various niche areas that impact youth and families such as education law, Medicaid eligibility and access, or housing issues, but it is impossible to expect every child welfare or juvenile justice attorney to have expertise in all of these. The logical solution is effective and consistent collaboration. As judges presiding over cases that involve multiple systems intersecting, it also becomes our duty to find a way to ensure that all systems have a way to communicate.

Over the years of presiding in child welfare and juvenile justice cases, what becomes apparent is that systems often do not speak to each other unless mandated to. As judges, we are uniquely situated to ensure that very need is met. It does require judicial leadership to effectively bring systems together. However, one of the best “superpowers” judges have is to convene people. If we call for a meeting, they will come. Ideally, it is best to have buy-in when creating a new collaborative, but in adversarial systems like child welfare and juvenile justice, a conversation is usually where that buy-in is sparked. As frustrating and confusing as circumstances seem to be for professionals trying to navigate the best interest of the child, the safety of the community, service and treatment goals for youth and their families, while presenting how this is being done effectively to the court, those youth and families are even more frustrated and confused than the professionals, in most cases. Given that each professional impacting a youth’s and family’s lives has various duties and responsibilities, it is incumbent on those who see this problem clearly to try and make the navigation somehow easier. Bringing systems together to communicate and work with momentum in the same direction is the only approach, short of helping the children and families find their way out of both systems as quickly as possible. The two notions are aligned.

WHEN WE KNOW OUR SYSTEMS ARE NOT COLLABORATING
Most advocates know when their systems are not collaborating, but for assurance, the following descriptions are telltale signs of disconnected systems:

Multiple similar assessments (like psychological evaluations) are being given to the same youth from different systems, with differing outcomes and recommendations.

  • Youth and families have outstanding needs (like referrals to service providers) that no professional or particular system has taken responsibility for and the youth and family do not know who to turn to for help.

  • Youth and families are double-booked for appointments with different professionals and often miss important appointments that make the youth seem out of compliance and/or parents uncooperative.

  • Parents complain about the numerous meetings, appointments, and court hearings they have to attend and are unsure of the meetings’ purpose.

  • A youth is formally placed somewhere that professionals working with that youth (like a caseworker or probation officer) did not know about.

  • Professionals working with a youth are uncertain about how many credits that youth has or what their appropriate grade level should be.

  • Professionals working with a youth are uncertain about who that youth’s primary care physician is or the last time the youth was seen by a doctor (or dentist).

  • There are multiple different accounts of what psychotropic medications a youth should (or should not) be taking.

This is not, of course, an exhaustive list of signs that there is dire need for systems collaboration, but any one of these circumstances can call for improved communication. When systems are collaborating effectively, the natural byproduct is greater than could be anticipated. Specifically, when multiple systems work together toward the same goal in serving the same population, a dynamic is created that aligns with best practices,1 is trauma-informed,2 and is effective in reducing the time youth and families are in systems like child welfare and juvenile justice. As collaboration improves, so do all the aforementioned outcomes—and even other desirable outcomes as well.

AN ACTION FOCUSED PLAN FOR SYSTEMS COLLABORATION
The most difficult part of systems collaboration is often executing a plan to ensure alignment and effective communication across key systems that regularly intersect and impact one another when serving the same population. The reality about systems is that they are usually bureaucracies that have a difficult time shifting within their own organizations, let alone trying to shift to accommodate outside organizations. There are often champions of change in each system and ideological alignment for the need to be more collaborative, but getting the approvals, the right leadership, and execution for each individual system is no small feat. Thus, oftentimes efforts to move toward improved systems collaboration fall short. There have, however, been many “recipes” for effective collaborations between systems and most of the recipes have some key ingredients.

One of the commonalities for strong collaborations is an identified shared goal. If multiple systems seem to all want to work toward the same end, it is highly likely they can begin to communicate more effectively on how they share in the means to get to that end. Additionally, most effective collaborations have a key champion of the effort. A person, like a judge, who sits in a position of leadership and is passionate about supporting a better approach to the shared work is often a great voice for the effort to build a foundation and expectation to collaborate more effectively in any given community or jurisdiction. This type of leadership brings the ability to gather key people to meet and begin to talk. Starting the conversation with how to best improve communication between systems usually leads to initial “easy wins” or “low-hanging fruit” that can build momentum for the effort.3 Locking in commitment from each system to continue follow-up discussion and support for the collaboration, along with concrete plans for the conversation to continue, is usually the last main ingredient to a promising start for effective collaboration. From here, a little professional technical assistance and focused facilitation of future meetings and plans can go a long way.

Regardless of the size of the jurisdiction wanting to effect change, this approach is a strong jump-start to improvements, however far the systems collaboration ends up. Finally, the most important concept to understand about achieving improved outcomes through systems collaboration is that the initiative is never complete. Collaborations of this importance will always need improvement and can always be refined. Those in the trenches of work on systems collaboration should not be discouraged if they believe they continually find things to improve upon. Much like the very areas of child welfare and juvenile justice, the work is never done but can always be done a little better. That is our charge and our commitment in working in the business of people.

NOTES

  1. What is the CYPM?, Center for Youth Justice, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University, https://cyj.georgetown.edu/our-work/crossover-youth-practice-model/what-is-the-cypm/; The Crossover Youth Practice Model identified collaboration as a key component to the model.

  2. Trauma-Informed Approaches and Programs, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (Feb. 8, 2026), https://www.samhsa.gov/mental-health/ trauma-violence/trauma-informed-approaches-programs; outlines a trauma-informed approach to include “collaboration and mutuality.”

  3. Simple efforts for more effective communication can include compiling email lists for certain types of communications or designating key point people from each system to be the receiver of information for collaborative efforts. These simple adjustments can spark significant initial improvements to communication between systems.

AURORA MARTINEZ JONES AURORA MARTINEZ JONES is the 126th District Court judge in Travis County (Austin) and is a Civil, Family and Juvenile Court judge. She is also the district judge responsible for the oversight and administration of all Travis County termination of parental rights lawsuits filed by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services and is the presiding district judge for the Travis County Family Drug Treatment Court: Parenting in Recovery specialty court and of the Travis County docket for dual status youth.