Policy & Practice | October 2021

from our partners By Susan Gale Perry and Molly Tierney

Focusing on Family Well-Being: A Conversation with Susan Gale Perry

I n April 2021, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) announced an organizational structure designed to increase health equity and better support whole-person health. As the first Chief Deputy Secretary for Opportunity and Well-Being, Susan Gale Perry’s responsibilities include the department’s services designed to build well-being (traditionally called “human services”), including the state’s new Child and Family Well-Being Division. The new division will bring together complementary programs across public health, social services, and mental health to elevate and coordinate the critical work of sup- porting whole child and family health and well-being. Molly Tierney, who leads Accenture’s child welfare practice in North America, spoke with Perry to learn more about what prompted the changes within NCDHHS, how the initiative is progressing, and the personal “why” that drives Perry’s commitment to the work. Tierney: North Carolina launched these changes during the pandemic, when many people across the country were noticing that children were out of school, adults were out of work, and suicides were on the rise. Other states have been working to address the pandemic’s impacts on systems—edu- cation, health care, and social services. But in North Carolina, you’ve flipped the equation. Instead, you’re focusing on families, how they’ve been affected and how you can help them recover. What prompted this approach?

services to help address interpersonal violence, such as helping a woman transition out of her traumatic condi- tion by securing safe housing and establishing a new phone number. Because we were already thinking in terms of whole-person and whole- family health and well-being, we were primed to take a similar approach to post-pandemic recovery. We want to build back better and have a height- ened sense of urgency as we have seen how children, families, and especially

Perry: North Carolina had been moving in this direction even before the pandemic. As we transitioned to managed care for Medicaid, our state made a major commitment to focus on social determinants of health like food security, stable housing, transportation access, and interpersonal safety. For example, our Healthy Opportunities initiative will test the impact of pro- viding evidence-based, nonmedical interventions to Medicaid enrollees. That could mean paying to replace carpet with flooring in the home of a child with severe asthma or targeted

See Family Well-Being on page 29

Photo Illustration by Chris Campbell

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