The benefits of consistent communication have been clear. When people are involved, there is naturally opportunity for change. When things change or when issues arise, it’s critical to have everyone involved in the problem-solving process. Our best ideas are born when we have more information, so we make communication a priority.
When we’re communicating regularly, we all know who is doing what, and we have the freedom to talk about the why. When you’re building trust with a family, it’s so important to all be on the same page. It’s important for the family to know that everyone is working toward the same goal, which is the best outcome for everyone.
When we work together and everyone knows what the other is doing, we also know that when we come back together, we can predict where the family will be in their progress. This minimizes the need for problem solving and makes it easier for the family and everyone involved in the case to see where we made progress and what we need to work on.
It’s been great to see the collaboration between our staff.
Heidi
Monday, October 18, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
Partnership in Permanency: consistency and communication
This next series of posts gives some insight to partnership within Iowa's Family, Risk & Permanency services...
To public and private agency employees, partnership can be seen if you look into the core of a relationship. It’s how well you know the person on the other end.
The next series of blog posts will take you down the path of two supervisors involved with FSRP (Family Safety, Risk, and Permanency) services which are designed to provide support to families and connect them to resources when they’re involved in the child welfare system. The services help them manage self sufficiency and child safety. Jody is a supervisor on the public side and Heidi is a supervisor for a private agency. They have worked together on cases and seen the real benefits of partnership and collaboration.
Jody: The most obvious way we collaborate is consistent communication. Supervisors from both the public and private agencies meet on a regular basis to discuss how things are going. While that always seems like common sense in theory, the tricky part is to make it happen.
There are many sides to keeping each other up-to-date on a case that you are mutually responsible for. First of all, the start of a case is immediate and everyone has to mobilize in a quick timeframe. In the beginning, there is so much discovery involved, and it’s important to keep communication open so that we can decide the best strategies to meet the defined goals.
We literally come together to staff cases – it’s not just a matter of being assigned to the same case. Everyone has an equal voice when we talk about hurdles and what we can do about them. It’s all about being solution-focused. In the past there wasn’t a forum for clinical consultation, but working in the model of partnership, we come up with better solutions because of the inclusive working environment. We’ve gone from a crisis-driven mode to a collaborative mode, and our staff is doing their best work ever.
To public and private agency employees, partnership can be seen if you look into the core of a relationship. It’s how well you know the person on the other end.
The next series of blog posts will take you down the path of two supervisors involved with FSRP (Family Safety, Risk, and Permanency) services which are designed to provide support to families and connect them to resources when they’re involved in the child welfare system. The services help them manage self sufficiency and child safety. Jody is a supervisor on the public side and Heidi is a supervisor for a private agency. They have worked together on cases and seen the real benefits of partnership and collaboration.
Jody: The most obvious way we collaborate is consistent communication. Supervisors from both the public and private agencies meet on a regular basis to discuss how things are going. While that always seems like common sense in theory, the tricky part is to make it happen.
There are many sides to keeping each other up-to-date on a case that you are mutually responsible for. First of all, the start of a case is immediate and everyone has to mobilize in a quick timeframe. In the beginning, there is so much discovery involved, and it’s important to keep communication open so that we can decide the best strategies to meet the defined goals.
We literally come together to staff cases – it’s not just a matter of being assigned to the same case. Everyone has an equal voice when we talk about hurdles and what we can do about them. It’s all about being solution-focused. In the past there wasn’t a forum for clinical consultation, but working in the model of partnership, we come up with better solutions because of the inclusive working environment. We’ve gone from a crisis-driven mode to a collaborative mode, and our staff is doing their best work ever.
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