Family First… Second: Finding a solution to managing the workflow
The goals associated with Family First are both noble and needed. If we do not fix our capacity crisis in child welfare, we may never see the results we hope to achieve.
Never Getting Behind Again: How One Child Welfare Agency Used the Pandemic to Transform Their Work to Help Children and Families
How the Indiana Department of Child Services used the pandemic to transform their work to help children and families.
All Aboard Toward Thriving Families: Strategies to Keep Early Intervention and Prevention on Track
Today’s child welfare train is working as hard as ever, with more weight - tasks, oversight, budget, limitations, and expectations - continually being added, and its network of policy tracks becoming increasingly more complex. To keep early intervention and prevention on track and move toward thriving families, here are key strategies to consider.
Reducing the Self-Created Workload: Making Room for a Wave of New Customers
Human Service Agencies across the country are grappling with a new wave of customers seeking support—many for the first time—due to the COVID-19 health crisis and subsequent economic downturn.
If Not Humans, Then What’s At the Center?
188 million results. This is the number of hits you get when you Google “Human-Centered Design.” While obviously very popular, I have to wonder, “just how did we get so far off course that we need to be reminded to keep the humans who use our technology at the core of our design?”
Digging to the Real Root Cause
We can make a difference, if we only stay focused on the root of the problems.
What Public Managers Can Learn from the Ventilator Shortage
Every work system has its point of constraint, and that's the place to focus on to increase the organization's capacity. You're only as good as your weakest link.
Management, Leadership and the Transformation Government Needs
What government does is noble and vital, but it can't deliver the value it should if we don't do a better job of making the work, work. The future of management is about more than technology and budgets.
The Unintended Consequences of Improvement
Sometimes when we make reforms, government jobs get better too.
What to do with the ‘Flo’s’ of Child Protection
If the work made passionate people act like Flo on the TV series “Alice,” then the work can bring them back.