Arizona Department of Child Safety Fiscal Year 2017 Strategic Plan Posted March 2017 P.O. Box 6030 s/c C010-23A Phoenix AZ 85005-6030 www.dcs.az.gov Douglas A. Ducey, Governor Gregory McKay, Director Table of Contents I. Overview ................................................................................................................. 1 II. Vision, Mission, and Values ...................................................................................1 III. Strategic Planning Process .................................................................................... 2 Federal Oversight and External Stakeholders IV. Strategic Goals & Objectives................................................................................. 3 Five-Year Strategic Goals Strategic Objectives, Initiatives & Key Actions V. Management System – Continuous Improvement & Sustainment ....................................................................................................... 5 Overview The Arizona Department of Child Safety (DCS or the Department) is committed to achieving safety, permanency and well-being for Arizona’s children and families. DCS is driven by this commitment, as well as a desire to be a national leader for child safety through a well-run, efficient, and effective organization based on best practices and continuous improvement. It is a privilege to present the fiscal year 2017 strategic plan as a continuation of the accomplishments achieved in fiscal year 2016 that stabilized the incoming workload, established business operations for the new agency, and improved objective decision-making at the Child Abuse Hotline and in investigations. Fiscal year 2017 is focused on sustaining the improvements made and safely eliminating the investigations backlog so that Department resources can be redirected to support permanency efforts for children in care. Vision, Mission, and Values Guiding the strategic planning process, are the vision, mission, and values that serve as a compass ensuring that the right priorities are identified and supported throughout all levels of the Department. It is imperative that the daily work continues without interruption, while implementing well-defined strategies to improve the overall performance and quality of our engagement with children, families, communities, and partner stakeholders. Again, in fiscal year 2017, strategic priorities were set to align with the vision, mission, and values. Vision The comprehensive strategic plan works toward a single vision for the agency: Children thrive in family environments free from abuse and neglect. This vision clarifies what DCS should look like in the future and where the organization would like to be in the future. It communicates the core principles that guide the work of child welfare in Arizona: • Safety: All Arizona’s children are safe and protected from harm • Permanency: All Arizona’s children live in safe, loving forever families • Well-Being: All Arizona’s children are given the opportunity to thrive through support of strong families and their communities Mission The plan outlines strategies for building the workforce, systems, and culture necessary to support the agency in achieving its mission: Successfully engage children and families to ensure safety, strengthen families, and achieve permanency. FISCAL YEAR 2017 STRATEGIC PLAN – POSTED MARCH 2017 1 This mission clarifies DCS’s purpose and why it should be doing what it does. The focus on successful engagement of children and families communicates how and why DCS reaches and partners with Arizona’s children and families. Values The plan acknowledges and supports a set of core values that serve as guiding principles for DCS. Each of the values listed below guides the agency in achieving its mission and outcomes. They are also the foundation to building the organizational culture. • Child-Centered: Children belong with families – their own when it is safe to do so and when it’s not, with a safe, permanent family who can meet their unique needs and will maintain their supporting, meaningful connections to continue positive values, beliefs and their cultural legacies. • Family-Focused: Families have the primary responsibility for raising their children and keeping them safe. Families are the experts regarding their own strengths and needs and will have a voice and decision-making role regarding decisions that affect them and their children. • Successful Engagement: Children, youth, and families are best served when child welfare staff respect the family, actively listen to them, and invite participation in decision-making to achieve positive outcomes. • Partnerships and Community: The entire community shares the responsibility of keeping children safe and protected from abuse and neglect. • Professional Environment and Workforce Excellence: Our professional competence will be demonstrated by an organization and workforce that proactively responds to the changing needs of communities and provides respectful treatment to families. • Cultural Responsiveness: All children and families have the right to be understood within the context of their own family rules, traditions, history, beliefs, and culture. • Accountability and Transparency: The child welfare system holds itself accountable to the highest standards of practice at all levels within the organization. We are transparent and responsive to our children, youth, and families as well as our staff, partners, and communities within the limits of confidentiality. Together, the vision, mission, and values shape the thinking and behavior of all levels of professionals within our organization and how we engage with each other, children and families, and the community. Strategic Planning Process In the development of the strategic plan, the Department gave thoughtful consideration to a variety of inputs ranging from feedback from stakeholders and DCS staff, trends in key Department performance metrics, and federal and state mandated requirements. The section below describes the Department’s efforts in aligning strategic priorities to better serve Arizona’s children and families. FISCAL YEAR 2017 STRATEGIC PLAN – POSTED MARCH 2017 2 Federal Oversight and External Stakeholders Collaborations with key stakeholders are mandated through the federal Child and Family Services Review (CFSR) process. In an effort to build on the already established framework, the strategic plan was developed with thoughtful consideration of the CFSR process that is conducted by the federal Children’s Bureau that closely examines child and family outcomes, and systemic factors through a variety of methods including case reviews, and interviews with stakeholders and families. Chart 1 shows the significant alignment between the strategic plan and the CFSR requirements. It is with intentional planning that the Department will begin a consistent dialogue about the well-being of families and children in Arizona, while maintaining transparency and accountability. Chart 1: Planning Continuum Another important input into the strategic planning process is the alignment with child welfare stakeholders, and state and federal oversite entities. Formal engagements include the Community Advisory Committee, the Arizona Citizen Review Panels, DCS Oversight Committee, and others. In addition to formal engagements, throughout the year DCS participates in a variety of meetings with service providers, community partners, sister agencies, county court partners, and other key child welfare stakeholders. These meetings help address immediate concerns and provide insight to challenges that exist outside of the Department, but may have significant impact to the Department’s ability to best serve families and children. Strategic Goals & Objectives The purpose of the strategic plan is to build the systems and structure that will support outcomes for the future while at the same time identifying challenges that have evolved over time that need to be addressed in the immediate term. The five-year strategic goals provide the long-term direction. With these strategic goals, the agency balances the priorities to ensure sustainability: FISCAL YEAR 2017 STRATEGIC PLAN – POSTED MARCH 2017 3 Five-Year Strategic Goals 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Improve objective decision-making at the Hotline and investigations Improve performance and quality of service through employee retention Reduce length of stay for children in out-of-home care Improve capacity to place children in family environments Reduce recurrence of maltreatment by improving service delivery Strategic Objectives, Initiatives & Key Actions The fiscal year 2017 strategic objectives are aimed at being responsive to immediate needs while continuing to work towards building systems to ensure sustainability and success over the long term: 1. Avoid historic 10%+ out-of-home population growth through improving safety decisions, targeted activities, and prevention work 2. Maintain Fiscal Responsibility 3. Improve Employee Retention Each strategic objective consists of initiatives and key actions that have been identified as moving the Department towards successful completion. Additionally, each strategic initiative has an assigned team lead and a project management type (A3 planning, project management, basic project plan) to guide the efforts and track timely delivery. Monthly reporting is required and allows the management team to address unforeseen barriers as well as make any necessary modifications to project plans as needed. Objective One: Avoid historic 10%+ out-of-home population growth through improving safety decisions, targeted activities, and prevention work Metric: Maintain OOH population below 19,000 children by June 30, 2017 The DCS system has experienced significant growth in the number of children in care over the last several years. The number of children coming into care has outpaced the number of children exiting care, therefore creating a capacity in the system that has not been manageable. To compliment strategic efforts taken in fiscal year 2016 to improve the processes on the front end of the system, the Department has prioritized efforts to expedite permanency for children in care, as well as further develop prevention efforts that can help families stay intact without DCS intervention. The initiatives are: - Refine and implement Safety Assessment and Intervention Model improvements - Refine and implement statewide field standardization - Implement targeted permanency activities to reduce OOH population - Expand the Office of Prevention Objective Two: Maintain Fiscal Responsibility Metric: Operate the Department at or below appropriated budget It is a priority to the Department to be mindful in allocating and maintaining resources in order to improve services to children and families. Over the last several years, the Department has undergone significant FISCAL YEAR 2017 STRATEGIC PLAN – POSTED MARCH 2017 4 changes in caseloads and agency structure. As capacity challenges have begun to stabilize and the Department is closer to full autonomy, the Department is committing to further evaluate the use of DCS resources across all areas. Initiatives under this objective include: - Refine and implement the budget control process Refine and implement the placement improvement process Refine and implement service array standards and application Achieve operations cost targets Execute the Title IV-E waiver demonstration project Objective Three: Improve Employee Retention Metric: Reduce all employee turnover from 26.7% to 25.0% by June 30, 2017 A stable workforce is a key component to sustaining the positive gains the Department makes. It is important that staff feel supported, that their work is meaningful, their ideas are heard, and they are provided with opportunities for professional growth and development. The Department is committed to a multi-pronged approach to address several of the main factors that contribute to turnover: - Execute investigations backlog reduction project - Define and implement case management job family and compensation structure Refine and implement "onboarding" experience Define and implement a leadership development program for all people leaders Management System – Continuous Improvement & Sustainment The DCS Management System is a subset of the Arizona Management system that has been established on the principles of lean. The DCS Management system is an intentional means of developing a learning organization. DCS is one year into building a management system to guide strategic decision-making while sustaining positive progress across all areas of the Department. The management system contains the following components: people development, leader behaviors, waste identification and problem solving, visual management, tiered accountability, and standard work. Coaching and implementation of these concepts is occurring across all areas of field and business operations. This management system approach encourages continuous improvement in processes and procedures while maintaining safety and quality in the work and services delivered. It is designed to provide department leaders with techniques to oversee their areas for success, to engage staff, and achieve their desired outcomes through process improvement and measuring target goals. The goal of the management system is to have “everybody, every day, everywhere reflecting on how they did yesterday, where the waste occurred and how to do better tomorrow.” Strategic planning is an integral part of the DCS management system. The priorities for the year are developed using key data metrics, compliance with state and federal regulation, trends in feedback received FISCAL YEAR 2017 STRATEGIC PLAN – POSTED MARCH 2017 5 from internal and external stakeholders, and internal quality control mechanisms established through the Department’s Office of Quality Improvement. Once the annual priorities are finalized, careful planning and project management is utilized to meet the agreed upon milestones. Progress on the strategic plan is reviewed on a monthly basis at the Director’s business review meeting with the DCS leadership team (see Strategy Deployment A3 below). Each month key metrics are reviewed, unforeseen challenges or barriers are raised, and priorities are evaluated to ensure continued alignment with strategic plan goals and targets. Updates on the Department’s progress will be made available after the close of the quarter. Any questions can be directed to DCSStrategicPlan@azdes.gov. FISCAL YEAR 2017 STRATEGIC PLAN – POSTED MARCH 2017 6 Department of Child Safety FY17 Strategy Deployment A3 Process Owner: Director McKay Revision Date: 7/1/2016 Plan FY2016 focused on stabilizing the incoming workload to the Agency as well as the Business Operations in the field and back office. Initiatives geared towards improving objective decision making demonstrated positive impacts on the "Front End" process. Targeted efforts greatly reduced the investigations backlog. Challenges remain, including the ongoing case management workloadd and time to permanency is extending longer than desireable. These factors along with the stress of the day to day work contributed to high staff turnover. FY2017 efforts will sustainably and safely eliminate the investigations backlog, permitting resource shifts to speed up the timeliness to Permanency. These efforts, complimented by specific actions to improve on boarding and leadership development, will improve Retention. Reducing the time to Permanency will reverse the OOH population growth and targeted initiatives will stabilize the cost of operating the system. 1 1 1 - Inactive cases and open reports have both realized a 60%+ reduction in FY16. - Efforts must maintain in a sustainment basis to eliminate the issue and maintain performance. - OOH population growth has slowed year over year from 8.3% in FY15 to just 2% in FY16. - Efforts are required to ensure appropriate interventions while reducing time in care. - FY2016 turnover was still a challenge for the Department. Although the system as a whole did not realize significant improvements, offices with workload reductions and experience positive gains Reflection on Last Year's Performance Objective: Results/Issues % Achieved 1 Improve objective decision making at the Hotline and Investigations - Hotline tool has demosntrated safe reduction of screen in % - Safety discussion guide built in 9/2017 launch 75% 2 Improve performance and quality of services through employee retention 3 Reduce length of stay for children in out-ofhome care 4 Improve capacity ot place children in family environments 5 Reduce recurrence of maltreatment by improving service delivery - Employee turnover remains a challenge and priority for the agency. Additional initiative assigned in FY17 to continue efforts FY16 realized a slowing of the population growth with increasingly greater number of exits. Time in care remains too long and additional initiative launched in FY17 to improve performance Improvements in the standardizaion of life ssafety inspection completed in FY16 yet sinigifanct work is still required. Additional initiatives assigned in FY17 to continue efforts Service referral waitlist was reduced 50% in FY16. Targeted efforts not required to standardize service delivery and improve partnership with providers 2 35% 1 K. Guffey 2 3 4 5 M. Dellner S. Jacobs ----- DCS Vision DCS Mission Refine and implement state wide field standardization Project - Targeted permanency activites to reduce OOH Pop Expansion of the Office of Prevention Refine and Implement Budget Process Refine and implement a placement improvement process Refine and Implement Service Array standards and application 2 Achieve Operations Cost Targets Execute IV-E Waiver Demonstration Project 40% FY17 Strategic Objectives Summary 2 30% Improve objective decision making at the Hotline and Investigations Improve performance and quality of services through employee retention Reduce length of stay for children in out-of-home care Improve capacity to place children in family environments Reduce recurrence of maltreatment by improving service delivery Exec Sponsor 2 Refine and implement Safety Model Improvement Objective: Metric: Objective: Metric: Summary Avoid historic 10%+ O-O-H population growth through improving safety decisions, targeted activities and prevention work Maintain O-O-H Population below 19,000 children by 6/30/2017 Maintain Fiscal Responsibility Operate the Department at or below appropriated budget Objective: Metric: Objective: Metric: Objective: Metric: Improve Employee Retention Reduce All Employee Turnover from 26.7% to 25% by 6/30/2017 --------- 3 3 3 Project - Execute Investigative Backlog Reduction Project Define and Implement Case Management Job Family and Compensation Structure Refine and implement "on boarding" experience Define and Implement Leadership development program for all 3 People Leaders --- - Improve the safety model with particular attention to Practice knowldege and utilization. Partner with Action 4 Child Protection on latest science enhancements Implement statewide standard for Case transfers from investigations-ongoing-specialized units including case planning. Implement management system elements Specific project work that supports safely reducing duration in care thus reducing OOH Population Enhancement and expansion of preventative services that supports reduction in number of children who enter Dependncy care Management process that supports fiscal responsibility and standardizes planning, reporting and accountability Improve the foster care experience including management of existing and new foster families and placement of Children Developed improved process standards for services that improves outcomes and ensure accountability. K. Guffey L. Wendell Mila S. Smith R. Navarro C. Ballard S. Blackburn L. Wendell Successfully engage children and families to ensure safety, strengthen families, and achieve permanency Execute specific process improvements and targeted projects to reduce operating costs Execute the IV-E waiver demonstration projects including redeployment of any potential savings Specific project work that eliminates investigations backlog state wide and establishes sustainment of performance Specific actions to realign the pay structure and job clasification for CSS I, II, III Improve retention through improvement of employeeon boarding , training and coaching of all case carrying staff and supervisors Improve retention through development of supervisors and Managers in both general management and leadership skillset --- A. Ong S. Blackburn FY17 - Q1 Metrics Behind FY17 - Q2 FY17 - Q3 FY17 - Q4 J A S O N D J F M A M J Accomplish monthly action items on time per the action plan baseline P O P P P P P P P P P P P Complete 100% of standarization implementation for all office by x B O P P P P P P P P P P P Achieve less than 19,000 children in out of home care by 6/30/2017 A O P P P P P P P P P P P Increase the % of utilization of preventative services from x to y B O P P P P P P P 100% of the budget control meetings occurred on time B O P P P P P P P P P P P < 2000 kids in residential placement # of useable beds Duration to license new beds (MTTL) B O P P P P P P P P SVO Capacity Improvement project Implementation Complete PA/SVO fidelity monitoring per monthly Complete PA/SVO Model Dev per action plan B O P P P P P P P P Cost of Contract labor Cost of POV reimbursements Cost per mile for fleet Cost per square foot for Facility usage B O P P P P P P P P P P P Implement Waiver Demonstration Project Capture Waiver Saving Amount P O P P P P P P P P P P P <1000 and <13,000 cases and open reports A O P P P P P P Complete implementation by 8/4/2016 B O P C Accomplish monthly action items on time per the action plan baseline P O P P P P P P P P P P P Accomplish monthly action items on time per the action plan baseline P O P P P P P P P P P P P Mila HR Greg K. Ross HR Greg --- --- Quarterly Performance Reflection Quarter 1: Quarter 2: Quarter 3: Quarter 4: Children thrive in family environments free from abuse and neglect FISCAL YEAR 2017 STRATEGIC PLAN – POSTED MARCH 2017 Team Lead Key Action Summary 75% 5 Yr Agency Strategic Priorities Obj # 1 2 Obj # Strategic Initiatives Obj. Risk Project Management Type A= A3; P = Proj Mgt; B = Basic Project Plan FY17 Strategic Initiatives Current Condition, Gaps and Needs (Updated 8/1/2016) On track Complete Core Principles Safety: All Arizona's children are safe and protected from harm Permanency: All Arizona's children live in safe, loving forever families Well-Being: all Arizona's Children are given the opportunity to thrive through support of strong families and their communities 1