Policy & Practice | Winter 2025

The Hidden Cost of Failed Adaptation: Human and Social Erosion When adaptation fails or happens without care, the consequences reach far beyond performance metrics. Compressed timelines create fatigue, strain, and short-term thinking. As survival overtakes purpose, organi zations risk losing empathy, teams become transactional, and communi ties fragment. The challenge, then, isn’t simply moving faster. It’s to move faster while maintaining clarity, collaboration, and connection. What is Community and Social Impact? The American Public Human Services Association (APHSA) focuses on Community and Social Impact (CSI) as a framework for innovation through five key drivers that collec tively strengthen the human services ecosystem. n Leadership and Capacity Building empowers individuals and organizations to lead transfor mative change by enhancing skills, collaboration, and strategic vision. n Safety, Health, and Well-Being emphasizes building resilient and healthier communities where indi viduals and families can thrive. n Community Engagement centers on co-creation with community members as experts, ensuring solutions are grounded in lived experience and shared ownership. n Social and Economic Mobility promotes pathways to opportunity through a whole-family approach that addresses interconnected barriers to success. n Technology, Data, and Innovation modernizes systems to enhance service accessibility, delivery, and participation, enabling the mea surement of community investment impacts, narrative shifts, and con tinuous system improvement. Together, these drivers form APHSA’s blueprint for advancing a impactful, innovative, and commu nity-driven human services system.

CSI as a Core Infrastructure CSI is not “nice-to-have”; it is an essential infrastructure for resilient organizations and thriving communities. 1. Community Restores Meaning: Engagement grounds organizations for shared purposes. 2. Social Ecosystems Extend Capacity: Cross-sector partnerships strengthen resilience and adaptability. 3.Collective Intelligence Fills Gaps: Shared learning improves decisions and accountability. 4.Belonging Builds Resilience: Genuine connection reduces burnout and fosters trust—the true currency of agility. 5. Social Impact as Strategic Signal: A visible commitment to impact signals stability, credibility, and long-term vision. How Human Services Can Lead Human services agencies face the same pressures as the private sector, but they also hold the tools to restore balance and connection. 1. Build Community Resilience, Not Just Response: Move beyond crisis management toward proactive resil ience through partnerships, data sharing, and digital tools that antici Collaboration: Innovation thrives at the intersection of public, private, and civic sectors. Collaborative eco systems accelerate solutions across the various sectors such as work force, health, and human services. 3.Use Technology to Amplify Connection: Human-centered design and iterative development can modernize systems while enhancing, not replacing, empathy and human connection. 4.Empower Local Leadership: Local networks have resources and deci sion-making authority to respond faster and build stronger trust. 5. Measure Impact Through Well Being, Not Speed: Redefine success through resilience, belonging, and access, not just efficiency. Sustainable speed strengthens com munities instead of depleting them. pate and adapt in real time. 2.Strengthen Cross-Sector

Natalie Williams is the Vice President of Community and Social Impact at APHSA.

Michael A. Becketts , PhD,

is the Director of the Fairfax County (VA) Department of Family Services.

Marci McCoy-Roth is the Chief Impact and Innovation Officer at APHSA.

Melanie Fenwick is the Senior Manager of Strategic Planning at the Fairfax County (VA) Department of Family Services.

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Policy & Practice Winter 2025