Lenore Behar has worked for over 37 years on the design, implementation, and sustainability of systems of care for children and their families. Although much of this work has been with child mental health systems, it has also included child health, welfare, and education systems. She has provided consultation to state agencies, public and non-profit community agencies, governing boards, and parent and consumer organizations. She is particularly skilled in helping grant communities to

• engage stakeholders in the planning and implementation process and to address sustainability issues;
• design and do project evaluation; and
• develop local and state level funding and program policies.

She has particular expertise is helping organizations and communities that are struggling to identify and overcome barriers to improve their services.

With William (Marty) Hydaker she has developed the System of Care Readiness and Implementation Measurement Scale (SOC-RIMS) to help communities assess their readiness to develop a system of care, their strengths and weaknesses, and how the system changes over time. This measure is research-based with established psychometric properties. It has very high reliability and validity, making it one of the few instruments to assess systems of care and progress with systems development.

She has also worked with federal agencies and private foundations to design their children's initiatives. She advised the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in the planning for their national initiative in child mental health. Additionally, she worked with the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation on the planning initiatives related to child and family services.

She is trained and certified by Concept Systems, Inc. to do Concept Mapping, which is a statistically based planning and evaluation strategy. Concept mapping is a valuable tool for the engaging work group members or community partners to work together in planning for change, in identifying goals, and in measuring progress.

In addition to her work as a consultant in program development, she has also served as a consultant in litigation regarding services to children in five states, West Virginia, New Jersey, Maryland, Arizona and Hawaii. From 1994-2000, she served as a member of the Technical Assistance Panel appointed by the federal court to assist the State of Hawaii implement a settlement agreement to improve mental health and special education services for children and their families.

She has been a reviewer for federal grant applications in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in the US Department of Health and Human Services.