Copia Cares
At Copia, our greatest focus is the impact we make on the ground, with the stakeholders and the children and families they serve, where we believe it matters most.
Copia Cares is the intersection of all of our areas of experience.
As Copia approaches its 20th anniversary, we have stepped back and considered how we might fill the coming years with work that we truly believe makes a difference. Two of our highest priorities are working with key businesses and organizations to eliminate food insecurity and houselessness in the City of Austin and beyond.
Our Experience
The Mayor’s Mental Health Task Force
This task force was the culmination of several years of community concern over the challenges faced by residents with severe mental illnesses. City of Austin Mayor Will Wynn created the Mayor’s Mental Health Task Force in August of 2004. More than 80 individuals representing over 40 organizations participated over a period of five months to 1) identify the strengths and gaps in mental health services in the community, 2) develop criteria that define a mentally healthy community, and 3) create an action plan to close the gaps in the community. Copia led the project and facilitated the group through numerous meetings designed to collect valuable information and create a strategic plan.
The Austin/Travis County Reentry Roundtable
This roundtable was a collaborative association of inter-disciplinary stakeholders including policy makers, victims, service providers, faith-based institutions, families, and formerly incarcerated persons, pulled together to identify and implement ways in which the prison population could be lowered and recidivism could be reduced to address the complex issue of reallocating the extremely high level of funds used for incarceration toward mental health services, parent training, education, etc. The foundational belief was that impacting the success of formerly incarcerated persons reentering communities naturally and logically improves the health and safety of the community, reduces the number of new victimizations, creates tremendous cost savings and impacts the success of future generations through long-term successful reintegration. Copia facilitated a series of group meetings that spanned more than 3 years, and also served as advocates in the Texas Legislature for the mission and vision of the group.
The Children’s Mental Health Partnership
This partnership consisted of a group of people representing many entities throughout the community that provide either funding, services or advocacy for families and children suffering from mental illnesses. Copia facilitated large group meetings, developed a strategic plan, assisted in securing grant funding for many of the activities, and assisted the group in expanding the availability of the best practice of wraparound mental health services throughout the community.
Parents Forward
Copia’s most current project of this nature. Funded by Casey Family Programs, the objective is to unite the child welfare community, including family court judges, providers of services and representatives from DFPS toward a common goal. That goal has multiple components:
Establish the requirement that organizations contracted by Travis County family courts provide only evidence-based parent training programs.
Reduce and/or eliminate waitlists by sharing data between providers and the courts, so that judges are able to place a family with a parent-training organization without encountering a waitlist whenever possible. This ensures that families receive high quality services as quickly as possible.
Because of our many years of experience in research and evaluation, we intend to conduct a great deal of research as we conduct this work that will allow us to document best practices, measure impact on the community and develop a model that can be replicated in other communities towards the greater good.
In short, we can help you create resources, convene, and conquer the issues that challenge our communities.