Effectively, the key elements of homeless-serving systems will have to be reformulated and conjoined with partner regions to develop a streamlined, integrated response to youth homelessness for rural areas. The key homeless system components will need to be extended across the target region in service delivery. This may mean a further reach from existing community providers into other rural areas, rural providers delivering locally or via urban-rural partnerships.

To interpret system of care components for youth in a regional context, a number of issues should be considered.

Table 7: Homeless-system & Regional Integration Elements

FOCUS ON INTEGRATION WITHIN HOMELESS-SERVING SYSTEM	FOCUS ON REGIONAL INTEGRATION IN RURAL COMMUNITIES
Planning & Strategy Development
Local strategy follows shared vision and principles grounded in evidence-based practice to end youth homelessness.	Development of shared planning approaches across defined regions targeting a common target population of youth.
Organizational Infrastructure
Organizational infrastructure is in place to implement youth homelessness plan and coordinate the homeless-serving system to meet common goals.	Coordinating infrastructure to lead integration efforts across regions is established.
System Mapping
Making sense of existing services serving youth and creating order moving forward.	Extending service mapping to document youth experiencing homelessness and housing instability touch points across defined regions.
Coordinated Service Delivery
Ensuring key system alignment processes including coordinated entry, assessment and prioritization are in place to facilitate access and flow through services for best individual and system-level outcomes.	Development of coordinated entry, assessment and prioritization to determine service matching for youth across systems using shared processes & facilitate integrated service delivery. Likely, decentralized but coordinated access will best support regionalization.
Integrated Information Management
Shared information system aligns data collection, reporting, coordinated entry, assessment, referrals and service coordination in the homeless youth-serving system.	Extending the use of a shared information system or developing data bridges among existing systems to enable information sharing for service coordination and planning purposes.
Performance Management & Quality Assurance
Performance expectations at the program and system levels are articulated; these are aligned and monitored along set service standards to achieve best outcomes for youth. Resources are in place to support uptake across organizational levels.	Common indicators are developed across similar service types across region to articulate how components fit as part of broader whole. Service quality standards are in place across participating region partners, reinforced through monitoring and capacity building.

Regional Coordination: To fully implement a regional system planning approach, particularly in small rural communities, coordination infrastructure must be developed to enable system planning and integrated service delivery. Certain functions may be centralized to maximize impact, though each regional partner will maintain an autonomous role in the consortium. The backbone supports involved in implementing a regional plan to end youth homelessness will need to be responsive and representative of a broader collective of stakeholders across localities.

System Planning & Integration: A regional youth plan will have to address system coordination, research, best practices, HMIS/HIFIS, funding coordination and policy analysis to support an end to youth homelessness across localities. The plan will also have to focus strategies on integration within regions and across public systems relevant to youth.

Funding Coordination: You may also need to think about how the plan can advance processes related to program performance management and improvement that are regional in nature to ensure system planning occurs across communities.

Regional HMIS/HIFIS Operations: If implementing HIFIS or HMIS for a larger region, appropriate staffing and training support will be needed. Analysis of system data regionally will need to be undertaken to enable performance management and ongoing strategy development in support of the youth plan.

Research & Homeless Counts: You may want to engage regional partners to develop and implement a research agenda to provide a better understanding of youth homelessness across the region and its unique dynamics in each locality. This will include analysis of HMIS and homeless count data, but will be enhanced by additional population-specific research on key issues, such as LGBTQ2S homelessness, Indigenous youth homelessness, migration trends, etc.

Training & Capacity Building: In terms of training and capacity building, assigning common training and technical assistance needs to the broader regional consortium can ensure local needs are met without adding to the burden on a single agency.

Quality Assurance & Performance Management: Quality assurance pieces that are common to regional partners can also be strengthened by collective work on implementing the youth plan. Assessment and referral protocols, standards of service quality and indicators of success can be developed with a regional lens, even if locally key funders take on appropriate monitoring in the day-to-day work.

Regional Service Delivery: The key elements of homeless-serving systems will have to be reformulated and conjoined with partner regions to develop a streamlined, integrated response to youth homelessness for rural areas. The key homeless system components will need to be extended across the target region in service delivery. This may mean a further reach from existing community providers into other rural areas, rural providers delivering locally or via urban-rural partnerships.

To interpret system of care components for youth in a regional context, a number of issues should be considered:

• Is there sufficient demand for a service component in a particular site?
• Is it cost efficient to centralize or decentralize service?
• Can outreach services be provided across communities?
• Which services are best centralized in the urban centre?
• Are there sufficient capacity/resources to deliver services locally?