1736 Family Crisis Center, one of the most beloved nonprofit organizations in Southern California, and the Novas Group, one of London’s most well-known and active charities, met in Los Angeles on October 26 to share best practices and excitedly plan future collaborative efforts.  The meeting was attended by 1736 Family Crisis Center’s Executive Director/CEO, Carol Adelkoff and her executive staff and Novas Groups’ Founder/CEO Michael Wake and his executive staff.  The two agencies found that although international differences shape to a certain degree how they structure their services, they share the same passion for helping women, children, and families in need.  Both agencies serve diverse urban areas and provide a full range of desperately needed residential and nonresidential services to women, children, and families.  In addition, both have a broad service focus that includes domestic violence, homeless, runaway, and at-risk youth, and comprehensive services for low-income and poverty level persons.  The Novas Group was especially interested in learning more about 1736 Family Crisis Center’s innovative systems for providing comprehensive family focused services.  Conversely, 1736 Family Crisis Center learned about the Novas Groups’ “social enterprise” structure in which clients receiving their services become employed by the organization as a way of serving duel functions of helping persons in need attain self-sufficiency while simultaneously using the proceeds of their enterprise to fund additional community services.  The two groups met in South Los Angeles at 1736 Family Crisis Center’s Community Service Center and conducted a roundtable discussion about best practices and challenges in common between social service systems in the United States and the UK.  Later in the day, 1736 Family Crisis Center took Novas Group on a tour of one of their confidentially located domestic violence shelters.  The day concluded with both agencies pledging to work collaboratively on an international research project emphasizing innovative clinical practices of serving homeless families and increasing economic empowerment of the homeless population.