History

The Harford County Local Management Board (LMB) was established in 1994 as a non-profit organization and in 2010 restructured as a program within the Harford County Department of Community Services.

LMBs (formerly known as Systems Reform Initiatives) began during the middle 1990s, in an effort to change the way services are provided to children and families in their communities. LMBs identify priorities and target resources for a jurisdiction’s communities. The major focus is to increase local authority to plan, implement, and monitor children and family services.
Father Playing With Kid
The establishment of LMBs was originally provided for in Article 49D that was enacted in 1990 and sunset on June 30, 2005. In response to the sunset of Article 49D, Executive Order 01.01.2005.34 was issued on June 9, 2006, establishing the Children’s Cabinet and GOC. During the 2006 Legislative Session, the General Assembly passed Senate Bill 294/HB301 that re-codified the LMBs. Bills were signed into law on May 2, 2006, re-establishing the LMBs in Article 49D (now Human Services Article §8-301-305).

LMBs serve as the coordinator of collaboration for child and family services. They bring together local child-serving agencies, local child providers, clients of services, families, and other community representatives to empower local stakeholders in addressing the needs of and setting priorities for their communities. There is an LMB in each county and in Baltimore City.

LMBs are on track in all of Maryland’s 24 jurisdictions, engineering changes in their communities that will result in a better quality of life for children and families. To date, LMBs have:
  • Created inter-agency services for children at-risk of out-of-home placements
  • Increased linkages between public and private agencies serving children and families
  • Led the way in returning and diverting children from out-of-state placements
  • Served as the coordinating body for many community level grants and initiatives such as, school-based health centers, C-Safe, Youth Strategies Initiative, and Healthy Families.
GOC is charged with managing LMB agreements and providing targeted training and technical assistance in capacity building, resource development, program implementation and fiscal accountability.