Communication Strategy

Jamie:

We had the same kind of participation. The “Purple Team” was made up of staff from public and private agencies, and they went to individual staff meetings to prepare participants for the mini-summit.  Everyone knew what we’d be talking about, what they were to bring to the table, and so they were able to come ready with some ideas. We actually used the family team meeting model and applied it to the mini-summit, and it really paid off in participation!

We were able to delve right into the strategy development phase, which is what everyone really wanted most. Many ideas were centered around clarifying expectations.  Because of the collaborative nature of the mini-summit, the conversations we had were so informative. No one needed to be cautious with questions or realities – everyone stayed professional and honest, and we figured out ways to establish that clarity.

The other piece was communication, and again – the environment made it possible for everyone to have realistic conversations and produce some great ideas.

It was the same story when we looked at our challenges, strengths and strategies for improvement. We’re all working toward the same goal, but an increase in communication and collaboration on the front end is going to get us closer to the goal. In our strategies, we literally wrote in shared responsibility for communication.

Summit Meetings

In June 2010, professionals from all over Iowa, from many different roles, met for a one-day summit, the Child Welfare Partnership Summit. The focus was improving outcomes for Iowa children and families and reinforce partnership at all levels.

Each of the five (5) DHS service areas was represented by a team of 20 participants to the summit. The teams comprised of DHS Front Line Supervisors, Provider (Safety Plan/FSRP Services and Iowa KidsNet) Front Line Supervisors, DHS Front Line Staff, and Provider (Safety Plan/FSRP Services and Iowa KidsNet) Front Line Staff.

The summit was neither training nor downloading of information. The majority of the summit was spent in facilitated dialogue about how well DHS and Providers are working together as partners, both on specific practice issues as well as on the respectful relationships needed to support good practice. The breakout sessions included the following topics:


1. Child and Family Service Review (CFSR) Outcomes

2. Conflict Resolution

3. Partnership Trickledown

4. Safe Case Closure

Based on the statewide summit for private and public agency employees, each service area was asked to take the information learned and use it to further the partnering initiative locally. We'll follow the story of two individuals who did just that in the west side of the state. These mini-summits in the west side of the state continue to date.

Connie tells her story from a perspective of an Iowa Department of Human Services (public) representative. Jamie tells her story as someone from a provider (private) agency.

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.