A National Imperative: Joining Forces to Strengthen Human Services in America (Jan 2018)

Much time has passed since our last visit to Freedom County, USA. It is a warm September day in Freedom County, in the year 2030, and the community is more vibrant and prosperous than ever. The County’s population has grown to over 250,000 residents, and social and health issues that have vexed the residents for decades have improved in recent years. The poverty rate has ticked down to below 10%. Homelessness has been effectively wiped out. Rates of untreated behavioral health disorders have fallen sharply. Though the number of adults ages 65 and up has swelled to nearly one in every four residents, fewer of those older adults find themselves without critical services and care. Among all adults, participation in the workforce is at an all-time high and unemployment remains well below the national average. Mrs. Williams on DeKalb Street passed away years ago, at age 96. Thanks to the support of the New Hope CBO, she lived independently and relatively healthily until the end. The move to a nursing home, which she so much wanted to avoid, never became necessary. Jack Dandridge, who was a 10th grader struggling with dyslexia when we last visited, is 28 years old now. He’s a lawyer, with a practice on Main Street, focused on real estate and helping new families just moving into town. “By the time I got to college, I had plenty of strategies for dealing with reading. I’ve known so many kids with dyslexia who have struggled throughout school and with jobs too.” Freedom County’s human services CBOs are now well-funded and supported. Working in tandem with CBOs and the Department of Human Services (DHS), the Freedom County legislature drafted and endorsed a “CBO Bill of Rights,” setting the stage for a major transformation across the County’s human services ecosystem. The DHS has reworked its contracts so that CBOs are reimbursed for the full cost of delivering services, including indirect operating costs. High-performing CBOs are also provided incentive payments for achieving target outcomes. Funding from DHS is now flexible, so that CBOs can determine how best to allocate funding and services to support the County’s clients. This required a big shift in how DHS How did the county get here?

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