Service integration, within the past decade, has become the cry from the Federal level down through to the local level. In a time of increasing fiscal crunch, legislators, local government, taxpayers and the agencies themselves are investigating more efficient mechanisms for service delivery. We are also concerned with meeting the needs of the client, as a complete human being, in an expeditious manner. The gap has been in the fragmentation of the system. The Commonwealth of Virginia has been assessing the system in an attempt to reorganize in such a manner that the role of government (local/state) should be in the human services field.

In 1974, the General Assembly of Virginia passed Senate Bill 517 (S.B.517) which was signed into law by the Governor. This bill authorized the Governor to allow five localities to establish pilot projects to test approaches in the integration of human service delivery. The legislative empowered the Governor to grant variances from State rules and regulations which might be hindrances to the success of these pilot projects. The Governor was also empowered to request exceptions from Federal rules and regulations where they proved to be hindrances.

A stipulation in the legislation said local governing bodies would have to formally approve the proposals prior to their submission at the state level. Senate Bill 517 carried no appropriation for implementation by the localities. The projects were to make commitments of their own resources with technical assistance being provided at the state level. Furthermore, it was stipulated that the projects should be reviewed by the Governor and the findings reported to the General Assembly.

The Secretary for Human Affairs, Otis L. Brown, received the charge to implement this legislative effort, and the Division of State Planning and Community Affairs provided state agency staff for him to solicit proposals, develop selection criteria, and to monitor and evaluate the results of the Senate Bill 517 effort.

On September 13, 1974, the Secretary of Human Affairs sent out information to the local service agencies concerning the legislation and guidelines for participation in this service integration effort. Information had previously been sent to local governing officials. Final proposals were to be submitted by January 31, 1975 with the selection of five pilot projects by February 15, 1975. The selection process included review of the applications by the state human resource agencies as well as staff in the Human Affairs Section of the Division of State Planning and Community Affairs.

So many projects were found to have merit that five were chosen and four alternates designated. The five projects were the cities of Chesapeake, Hampton and Roanoke, and the counties of Carroll and Fairfax. The four alternates were the counties of Arlington, Charles City, Montgomery and Washington.

During this time, staff in the Human Affairs Section of DSPCA, with direction from the Secretary, had been exploring Federal administrators of the 1115 Research and Demonstration Grants were particularly interested in funneling a portion of their monies into service integration efforts. A separate proposal which had been submitted by the City of Portsmouth, and attempt to integrate all of the human service programs in the city, also appeared to be attractive to the Federal grants administrators.

An agreement was reached with the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to fund the efforts of the nine 517 service integration projects along with the City of Portsmouth. The State Department of Welfare agreed to match these resources three to one with Title XX dollars. The funding was done under a renewable grant for a period of three years.

The State staff functioned as technical assistants to these ten localities, first as staff in the Human Affairs Section of DSPCA and later as the executive planning staff to the Secretary of Human Resources (O.S.H.R.). They also served as the liaison between the local, state and federal levels. The emphasis, in this role, has been to assist and document the endeavors of the local projects and to identify transferable integration techniques for other localities.

This report attempts to document Virginia's ten pilot project efforts to initiate and maintain improved methods of service in both administration and delivery. Within these pages, we will focus on the progress of the pilot projects in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Briefly, we will look into the future of services integration according to the State staffs' analysis of the projects.