Usually, there is very little communication and even less coordination among people working in separate agencies, although many of these professionals work with the same families. One service is offered, but several more may be needed before anyone's efforts pay off. Isolated from colleagues who might make their own work with families more successful, too few providers routinely experience the sense of accomplishment that comes from making the lives of children and families better. Eventually, a frontline worker's determination to make a difference in people's lives becomes determination just to keep going. Services to enhance the development of children and the functioning of families are limited.
Preventive services are few and far between.
Constrained by funding requirements or their other obligations, schools and helping institutions wait until needs grow into difficult problems, then work alone instead of joining forces to solve them. The demand for crisis-intervention and treatment services increases steadily. As a result, most resources are drawn away from preventive services where they could do the most good and are directed, instead, to patch up long-ignored crises that are the most difficult and costly to repair.