Michael Norton attended the OUELI program, Leading with Vision, Value and Strategy, in September 2003 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. This institute was sponsored by the National Network for Child Safety and was attended by children services executives and managers from six New England states.
Mr. Norton said the strategic triangle and performance measurement model has helped the bureau’s senior management team move its child protection reform initiative ahead during a time of agency reorganization.
The Maine Department of Human Services (DHS) is currently undergoing reorganization and, as part of that, the Bureau of Child and Family Services will be merged with the department responsible for mental health services. In addition to better integration of service, Bureau management wants to ensure that important child protection reforms underway remain on track during the reorganization.
In addition to the agency reorganization effort, the Bureau has sought to keep mainstream child welfare reforms as the focus of policy-making with stakeholders. This includes measuring desired outcomes, such as reducing the population needing foster care and increasing placements with related caregivers. It also emphasizes frontline practice changes, including a Family Team Meeting initiative to engage families in finding solutions and efforts to find foster homes closer to the homes and school districts of children.
To advance that objective, the senior management team developed a communication strategy that has helped it understand and articulate their goals, target audience and messages. A PowerPoint presentation entitled “Getting it Right for Children and Families” was developed for this initiative and presented to the Governor’s Cabinet and the Bureau’s Legislative committee of jurisdiction, Heath and Human Services.
The management team members also looked at the bureau’s operational capacity to implement such a communications initiative. They realized that although their bureau was built to deliver services, it didn’t have significant staff dedicated to public relations and communication. They were able to identify ways in which management staff could use existing relationships to deliver its message. For example, they developed a briefing document for district managers and talked with them about using their already established relationships with state legislators to talk about the proposed reforms.
Managers said the communication strategy gave them a way to move forward and helped them stay focused on bringing their message to their target audience, including the Governor, the new agency commissioner, legislators (particularly legislative committee chairs), and health and education professionals. The management team also has been able to keep focused on the target audience instead of being distracted and responding in a reactive way to narrower interest groups. Public criticisms upset staff who wanted to respond in kind. And while the bureau has not shied away from responding to criticisms publicly, it intentionally chose not to engage in a political fight. Instead it deliberately used strategies such as op-ed pieces in the newspaper to communicate its position to the public, while concentrating on delivering its message to its key stakeholders who have budgetary and legislative authority over the agency.
Part of the bureau’s strategy was to get out in front of what might be considered bad news, putting information in context both for those favorable to its work and its critics. For example, a federal review of Maine’s child welfare system found that children stayed in foster care too long. The bureau issued a press release announcing this finding, essentially agreeing with it and then taking the opportunity to talk about the bureau’s reforms that would be part of the solution.
A legislative session begins this month in which plans to merge the social service and mental health delivery systems will be finalized. At the same time, the state will be reducing spending by about $600 million from a $5.3 billion biennial budget. The child welfare program is in a stronger position to manage through this time of substantial change because of its work with the strategic triangle and performance measurement model.
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