OCA Makes Presentation to the Commission on Enhancing Agency Outcomes (May 27, 2009)

The Office of the Child Advocate (OCA) has conducted preliminary research on the models of service delivery for children and their families across the country and best practices for improving collaborations across state agencies on behalf of children.  This research, coupled with the OCA’s extensive experience and expertise in evaluating the delivery of services to children across Connecticut’s state agencies as mandated by our statute (Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46a-13k-l), led to an invitation to present at the Connecticut Commission on Enhancing Agency Outcomes on May 27, 2009.

The presentation, “A Blueprint for Better Human Service Delivery in Connecticut:  Increasing the Value of Our Dollars,” provides a broad overview of human services in Connecticut including service regions, duplicative internal support functions and services across agencies, and potential challenges for consumer access and government accountability and oversight. 

OCA examined promising examples from across the country of efforts to coordinate services, reduce duplication of services, and improve outcomes for children and their families.  From this work, several themes emerged.  Most notably, OCA found that the organizational structure of the human services system was less important than a system’s ability to coordinate information and best practice and to collaborate across all departments serving children and families. 

While OCA examined a number of states and localities with varying degrees of integrated human services, the OCA presentation focused on Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.  Allegheny County has been the subject of evaluation and national recognition related to their efforts to bridge existing service silos and coordinate services with the support of information technology. 

OCA’s presentation concluded with several ideas to explore through collaboration among Executive Branch leadership from the Governor and agency commissioners, the Legislature, the Judicial Branch, consumers, providers, advocates and the academic, philanthropic and business communities. 

To see the full presentation, please click here.