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February 2016
Policy&Practice
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ongoing transformation. This involves
mentoring for supervisors, improved
compensation, career path develop-
ment, and other initiatives. The agency
is conducting staff surveys and road
shows for leadership to connect with
front-line staff.
See the silver lining in unexpected
places
Adaptive leaders need to be
optimists to seize on the poten-
tial of a good idea. Maria Cancian,
deputy assistant secretary for Policy at
the Administration for Children and
Families (ACF), encourages leaders to
find ways through barriers.
She works with program directors
to integrate across programs, and
has faced some resistance. Her initial
reaction was to be frustrated by territo-
rialism. However, once she considered
the intention behind such “tribal”
mindsets, everything changed. This
shift from pushing back to working
through barriers helps adaptive leaders
move past pitfalls to progress.
Strengthen partnerships with data
The human service commu-
nity has long recognized the
need to support cross-agency
and cross-sector partnerships to
improve service delivery. Joseph Parks,
director of Missouri HealthNet, offers a
fresh perspective. This insight reflects
Parks’ experience helping to create
the groundbreaking Missouri Health
Homes initiative, a unique service
delivery program designed to improve
care for a targeted population with
mental illness or substance abuse and
at least one chronic condition.
Developing this model required sig-
nificant structural changes—recreating
relationships among multiple agencies,
vendors, legislators, and the private
sector. As Parks explains, a shared,
data-backed view helped to build rela-
tionships around facts, not assumptions.
Experiment, experiment,
experiment
Leaders in situations without
a roadmap must be bolder,
embracing experimentation. This is
NATIONAL HEALTH &
HUMAN SERVICES
2016 SUMMIT
IMPACT.
INSPIRE.
INNOVATE.
MAY 22-25
KEY BRIDGE MARRIOTT
ARLINGTON, VA
www.APHSA.org@APHSA1
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4
3
See Outcomes on page 25
“The only way to change the lives of families
and systems is to be inside them. You have to
be in there day in and day out, have to be up
to the challenge to do it.”
—VIRGINIA PRYOR, DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF CHILD WELFARE
AT THE GEORGIA DIVISION OF FAMILY AND CHILDREN SERVICES