In this month’s Partner Spotlight, Benchmarks would like to highlight our partners at Cleveland County DSS. Since 2016, Cleveland County has been working with Benchmarks’ Center for Quality Improvement to implement Partnering for Excellence (PFE), a project that aims to ensure child welfare involved youth are appropriately screened, assessed, and treated for trauma in a timely and effective manner.
Recently, Cleveland transitioned to the sustainability phase of the project which means all implementation activities for the project are being managed locally. Since transitioning, our partners at Cleveland County DSS have shown tremendous dedication and true ownership of the project. Since starting PFE they have expanded their view of what it means to be trauma-informed, enhanced their use and incorporation of data in their decision-making processes, and committed to being innovative in their approaches to serve children and their families.
In preparation for the transition, Director, Katie Swanson made the decision to pull together a training team that would spearhead trauma training for the agency. This new training group, which includes staff from varying levels of leadership within the agency, has really taken on what it means to be a trauma-informed agency, going beyond just training new staff on trauma. Since becoming trainers of the National Childhood Traumatic Stress Networks (NCTSNs) curriculum earlier this year, the group has not just done a phenomenal job training the curriculum but have become champions within the agency. The group has also made it a priority to make sure other changes occur within the agency to meet their goal of truly being trauma-informed in their day-to-day practice. This includes looking at things like visitation rooms and finding innovative ways to ensure psychological safety when taking suggestions from other staff about potential areas of improvements. While each of these changes may individually seem insignificant, the reality is that a large part of being trauma-informed is the act of paying attention to small details instead of sweeping them under the rug.
In addition, Cleveland County has come leaps and bounds over the past year in their data collection and monitoring processes. They have found ways to use the data collection processes developed through this work to help improve upon other internal data collection and monitoring processes within the agency. This increased focus on obtaining information for the purpose of making more data driven and informed decisions equips leadership with added tools to:
- Understand the positive impacts the agency is having on children and families and how best to duplicate them;
- Name areas where added attention and resources may be beneficial; and
- Evaluate the nontraditional trauma-related needs of families involved with child welfare.
Combining information about how children move through the PFE pathway (including successes and barriers) with state-mandated roles and responsibilities has provided Cleveland County leadership with unique opportunities to collaborate with stakeholders to develop innovative solutions to reduce barriers to services. One example of this is the Adversity Impact Assessment (AIA) which was developed by PFE-involved providers in conjunction with Cleveland County DSS. The purpose was to ensure youth involved in In-Home Family Services and Assessments continued to receive trauma-informed assessments when Trauma-intensive Comprehensive Clinical Assessments (TiCCAs) were temporarily no longer an option for non-LME/MCO covered youth due to changes accompanied by the implementation of Medicaid Transformation.
From deciding to be a part of PFE in 2016, to their continued efforts towards improving the lives of children and their families, our partners in Cleveland County continue to be at the forefront of innovation and “good” work…even when that work is challenging. Greatest thanks and congratulations to Cleveland County DSS and our partnering PFE agencies for committing your time, effort, and energy to ensuring children and their families continue to have access to this amazing work!
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