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Consultation and Technical Assistance VVDB provides comprehensive and integrated services and products to states and communities to plan, implement, and improve systems of care and wraparound process. VVDB believes that successful implementation of system of care and wraparound must occur at multiple levels and through multiple processes. VVDB believes we can best help communities if we are prepared to support all of these elements. Consultants and consultation firms who specialize in one or a few of these areas often provide services that are not integrated with the overall strengths, needs and direction of the community in much the same way that categorical services were provided before system of care and wraparound. We employ staff with a variety of skills, network with other consultants and do strengths and needs discovery prior to proposing work. With a strong commitment to doing what is right, VVDB is able to provide the continuum of resources that support individualized community development. Some of the areas of this consultation and technical assistance are described below. However, we individualize our work to many other needs specific areas not listed here. |
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Good system of care to support children and families are developed through collaborative planning. Agencies and organizations within communities have varying societal mandates and missions which often seem to be at conflict and barriers to truly collaborative system integration. When communities have a common vision and direction for supporting children and families, system of care can be developed that produce better and more cost efficient outcomes for children and families. Effective system of care are built on commonly held values and visions. VVDB has worked with communities across the country to develop processes for developing common visions and values, outcomes and performance indicators for these outcomes, and strategic plans for achieving these outcomes. This service can range from working with already developed community teams to outline a process that is implemented by the community to facilitating the entire process. Professional and Management Mentoring and Consultation VVDB has worked in all 50 states and most of the Canadian provinces. Through these experiences we have seen and assessed the impact of many innovative approaches to planning, developing, and implementing service systems and individual processes within the service systems. We have worked with and assessed the impact of many managers and supervisors. Through these experiences, we have developed extensive knowledge of what works to create the conditions at state and community levels that lead to system change. One of the services we provide is professional and management mentoring and consultation for state and community managers and supervisors. Through this service we can provide examples of what has worked for other communities. Assessment and recommendations are tailored for the unique situations of the state and community, and we facilitate networking with managers and supervisors facing similar challenges in other communities. Managers and supervisors report that VVDB professional and management mentoring and consultation has provided them with a wealth of information, emotional support through the challenging times of system change, and helped them avoid many of the false steps that come from trial and error learning. Staff and Supervisory Training The key to successful implementation of systems of care is
the people within the system of care. VVDB provides a wide variety of national and local workshops and training to support
the development of the human resources of the communities. These are described in much
more detail in the Local and National Training section of this web site. These services
range from introductions to systems of care and wraparound to advanced workshops on
supervising staff, building human resources within a system of care, community evaluation,
and specifics of providing services for children and families with a variety of strengths
and challenges. VVDB provides
workshops and training directly, customizes trainings for local communities, facilitates
the development of internal training resources for communities, and provides training
materials and videotapes/DVD's. VVDB
believes in pre-training assessment to be used as a basis for individualizing training,
ongoing assessment to ensure each training is on target for the participants, and post
training assessments to measure the impact of the training. |
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Successful systems of care are formed around community teams. These teams include the agencies, organizations, community leaders, and consumers that make up the system of care. VVDB has staff who specialize in supporting the development and improvement of these local community teams. We help identify who within a community should be part of the team. We assist in developing roles and responsibilities, to developing strategies for gaining and sustaining financing. We provide consultative advice on how to address specific challenges for communities VVDB staff provide a full range of support in the development and improvement of community teams. Development of Financing Mechanisms The success of implementing systems of care is often dependent on funding. VVDB has staff who specialize in helping states and communities develop strategies to use current funds more efficiently, increase federal participation, and obtain and sustain new funding. This support ranges from working with local agencies, community teams, and working with state agencies to develop waivers to provide more flexible funding from federal programs. Information Management Systems As we move forward into the Information Age, the demands and possibilities for information are increasing. Information about the children and families, services, processes, outcomes, and costs can be extremely helpful in continually improving services and supports. On the other hand the competing and often fragmented needs of federal, state, and local systems for information often detract from service delivery without value added. In addition, the deficit based nature of most current information systems continually focus attention on the problems of the children and families and encourage deficit based service delivery approaches. VVDB has been working with local and state governments and agencies to develop integrated and strengths based systems to support system of care development. These systems gather demographic and risk information, document planning and services, provide information for billing, and integrate with state and federal information systems. To support communities to develop the systems that will work best for them, it is critical to continually improve the knowledge base about what works and why it works. VVDB is very active in community-based research to assess the impact of systems of care, wraparound, and innovative strategies and practices for supporting children and families. VVDB has research staff who specialize in the development and implementation of research. We work with local communities who want to be a part of this research effort. VVDB provides external evaluations for states and communities to assess the outcomes, processes and cost impact of service delivery and demonstration projects. Specialized evaluation staff work with states and local communities to determine the questions that are meaningful for the state and community and methods for getting answers to these questions. VVDB also works with local communities to develop their own evaluation and quality improvement processes. These processes are described in more detail in the Evaluation and Research Section of this web site. In addition, in the Work Opportunities with Vroon VanDenBerg there are descriptions of opportunities for students and researchers to work with VVDB on these efforts. |
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Vroon VanDenBerg LLP, 10822 Quail Creek Drive
East, Parker, CO 80138
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