Policy & Practice August 2018

president‘s memo By Tracy Wareing Evans

Defining Success by 2022: Moving Toward the Generative State

E arlier this year, at our annual National Health and Human Services Summit, we released our

Strategic Playbook, which serves as the guidebook for our members’ action plan for the next five years. In April’s issue, we shared our newly adopted vision and mission statements, reflecting the shared belief of leaders across the country that health and human services (H/HS) are a cornerstone to building a strong, dynamic, and healthy nation made up of thriving communities. We also shared the key elements of the Playbook as captured in our Theory of Action, which guides the steps and strategies we take daily, with and through our members, to influence sound policy, build agency capacity, and connect leaders through shared learning platforms. This month, we want to share, as a membership body, howwe define success at the end of the five-year plan and howwe intend to measure our progress along the way. The Human Services Value Curve (VC) is a helpful lens for guiding our collective journey to enable all families to live healthy lives and thrive in their communities. As such, we have embedded it in how we define success through the following six indicators. The descriptions below capture the impact we want to see by 2022: n Productive National Narrative. APHSA membership is a key influencer and driver of a widely adopted meta-narrative that facili- tates finding common ground and advancing solutions that are adapt- able locally, centered on the whole family, and that help build thriving communities (VC stages 3 and 4). n Modern H/HS Policy. National policy is increasingly focused on

and program design across the country from a political, partisan perspective to practical, data- informed decisions that drive the desired outcomes we all share: more timely, accurate, and compliant program delivery (VC stage 1); any door into the system allowing com- prehensive needs assessment and efficient interventions (VC stage 2); high-need individuals and families triaged into consultative service planning and mutual engagement tailored to achieve economic and social mobility (VC stage 3); and places or populations experiencing chronic cycles of poverty developing more effective ecosystems to change this pattern (VC stage 4). n Agile H/HS Workforce. Broadly, we observe an increased focus and capacity within agencies and

whole-family approaches and addresses social determinants across sectors and systems (VC stages 3 and 4); it also incentivizes and enables use of the latest technology (all VC stages), provides for optimum use of data to drive decisions through a race equity lens (VC stages 3 and 4), and supports cross-sector partner- ships (VC stages 2, 3, and 4). using modern researchmethodologies to help identify and spread evidence- informed factor models and front-line practices (VC stages 3 and 4). We have also further validated the impact of the Value Curve and our Organizational Effectiveness practice through third- party evaluation (VC stages 3 and 4). n Data Optimization at All Levels. Broadly, we observe a shift of policy n Evidence-Informed Investments. APHSA has established strong, stra- tegic relationships withmultiple researchers and academia who are

See President’s Memo on page 36

Photo via Shutterstock

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August 2018 Policy&Practice