Earlier this month we announced Benchmarks will be working on a new project with Vaya Health, a Medicaid managed care organization in North Carolina, to improve the lives of children in the child welfare system. Benchmarks will provide consulting and training services regarding the alignment of practices of the local child welfare system and the behavioral healthcare provider system. To jumpstart this effort, Vaya and Benchmarks invited each DSS Director from Vaya’s current 22 counties as well as the 9 additional counties that will join Vaya Health in January 2022 to an official Kickoff Meeting to learn more about the project and next steps.
Attendees included DSS Directors; Brian Ingram, Vaya Health CEO as well as other members of the Vaya Health leadership team; Karen McLeod, Benchmarks CEO with other members of the Benchmarks leadership team. During the Kickoff DSS Directors had an opportunity to hear from both Brian and Karen about how this project came to be and how Benchmarks can serve as a neutral third-party to help better align the child welfare system.
In our next step of the project, we have scheduled focus groups with DSS Directors, behavioral health, foster care, and residential providers. During the focus groups we hope to collect valuable information to help form a shared vision as well as learn more about collective challenges. The information received will be used to guide our efforts as we move forward on this exciting project to improve the child welfare system and it is important to us that we have input from all stakeholders. We look forward to continuing to share our journey and lessons learned!
Comments (0)