This article reviews the primary concepts underlying the current movement toward the provision of comprehensive school-linked services for children and families in low-income communities and the implications of this movement for school psychologists. The development of collaborative partnerships involving schools, public, and community-based agencies is an attempt to increase the availability and accessibility of needed services to children and families. The adoption of collaborative governance and a case management system is intended to offer an alternative to the proliferation of separate categorical programs and the associated lack of coordination among programs. The hope is to emphasize prevention and efficient early intervention. Collaborative efforts can provide an opportunity for role expansion among school psychologists. This possibility is discussed within a consultation model of service delivery that is consistent with the collaborative nature of school-linked services and with the preventive stance that orginated them. School psychologists are in a position to contribute to team consultation, case management, and needs assessment. Implications for training are drawn.

The impetus for integrated and comprehensive services delivered to families need not be the public schools or other governmental agencies. Grassroots community-based organizations may also organize to provide both a location and an administrative umbrella for the delivery of a wide range of services to children and families. An attempt to conceptualize and clarify emerging initiatives in service integration has led Marzke, Chimerine, Morrill, and Marks (1992) to describe four types of service-integration efforts at the local level: (a) community-based multiservice centers, (b) targeted programs in community settings, (c) institution-based programs in community settings, and (d) school-based programs.Marzke et al.'s classification groups local initiatives on the basis of the relative role that community-based organizations (e.g., a Free Clinic) and private and public institutions (e.g., hospitals or schools) play in the collaborative structure and on the range of available services targeting either specific populations or needs, or more general areas of concern. This chapter describes the functioning of family resource centers, a generic term we shall use for community-based service providers , but particularly community-based multiservice centers. The major advantage of family resource centers is that they empower community members to shape their own futures. Community members may organize services they perceive themselves to require, and arrange for the delivery of services in a manner with which they are comfortable.The definitions of neighborhood and community have been discussed extensively in the sociological literature and conceptualized variously, depending on the aspect of community life that is emphasized (Froland, Pancoast, Chapman, & Kimboko, 1981). There is general agreement, however, that community is a geographical entity within which neighborhoods represent distinct subunits, also defined by proximity (Garbarino & Kostelny, 1994). Within this general frame, Unger and Wandersman (1985) identified 53