Background Research for My Memoir Thesis at Ashland University

In addition to reading the required books for my MFA coursework at Ashland University, I am reading a number of books that help establish a modern view of the community services systems that affect family life, especially those dealing with drug use and mental illness. I'm selecting memoirs and explanatory texts that explain the system as we know it, or learn it as the case may be.

The community services we dealt with as a result of my brother's mental illness and some of the resources I'm looking at include:

• the schools -- Behavioral Interventions in Schools by 
• the courts
• the police -- Community Policing by Miller, Hess, Orthmann
• the mental health counselors
• the medical community
• the drug rehabilitation centers -- Alcoholism by Ann Manzaro
• the Child Protection Services
• food banks
• Catholic church
• the social security administration
• the child ad litem representative system
• the prisons
• welfare system
• lawyers
• foster parent system --  To the End of June by Chris Beam

While handling my brother's issues, we were basically clueless how all of this worked and pretty much did what we were told to do while trying to make decisions about how to best proceed. Now that most issues have been dealt with, although many linger on, I'd like to get an idea about what works better now compared to what we dealt with at the time.