Historically public and private agencies walked into meetings in our perceived roles: the state has a regulatory/compliance role and the private agency has the responsibility to fulfill a contract. Deciding that our first meeting would center around what we want to achieve and our shared responsibility to achieve a common objective kept us focused on what was important. By concentrating on the best way to keep kids safe, we were able to see how our roles compliment each other
When we prepared for the first meeting of the task force, we agreed: Let’s not talk about money – let’s talk about what we want to achieve.
Fortunately we both agreed this was the best approach for our first meeting. When we all came together for the first time - focused on the objective – something remarkable happened. We started out talking about the practice of keeping kids safe. That’s what we’re all about. That’s what we know.
In the room were two Chief Executive Officers of human service agencies, a program manager and two levels of DHS administrative personnel. The total years of experience in human services in that room tipped the scales, and we started our task of defining a pay structure by talking about best practice in keeping kids safe.
