P&P June 2016

association news

Presenting APHSA’s Collaborative Centers

A s APHSA continues the progres- sion along the Human Services Value Curve, we are focusing our efforts on better ways to collaborate and integrate our members’ and partners’ expertise to support stronger, healthier families and communities, sustain the well-being of our youth, and ensure all Americans have oppor- tunities for gainful employment. To this end, we are framing our Pathways work through “collabora- tive centers” where leaders across the human service family—including from each of our affiliates and councils— can contribute insights, participate in collective discovery, and generate solutions. Through the center plat- forms and a more intentional focus on “knowledge management,” members and partners organize to: „ „ Develop and advance influence cam- paigns for policy change „ „ Elevate innovations and solutions „ „ Develop tools and guidance for the field „ „ Leverage our own proven organi- zational practice to strengthen the drivers of organizational readi- ness, continuous improvement, and performance „ „ Shape and spread key message using framing science, and „ „ Test and refine emerging applica- tions and promising practices. The Centers allow us to “upload” insights of members and partners across disciplines and help translate why it matters for all of us. The Centers allow us to target and adapt policy and technical assistance efforts—being smarter about where our energy is expended—based on a robust under- standing of the current landscape. The Centers keep the focus on thinking about systems and measuring child and family outcomes and help avoid

only thinking about programs in silos and simply tracking outputs. To introduce you more fully to each of our Centers, as well as our efforts for knowledge management, we’re highlighting them in a five-part series, beginning with the Center for Employment and Economic Well-Being. Watch for upcoming articles on the National Collaborative for Integration of Health and Human Services, the APHSA Innovation Center, our Knowledge Management approaches, and a (yet to be launched and named) center on Child and Family Well-Being. Independence is one of four key outcome areas APHSA seeks to impact through a transformed human service system. For working-age individuals and their families, having a job and staying in the workforce are critical to achieving greater independence. Gainful employ- ment is one of the surest and most long-lasting means to equip people with the lifetime tools they need for economic success and to avoid poverty. The APHSA Center for Employment and Economic Well-Being (CEEWB) Focus on the Center for Employment and Economic Well-Being Gainful Employment and

has been established to identify and promote policies, funding structures, and practice models that promote a system of human services, workforce development, economic development, and education and training that effec- tively supports greater capacity and independence, employment, self-suffi- ciency, and well-being for low-income individuals and families. Human service agencies, along with their partners inworkforce development, economic development, and educa- tion and training, play a critical role in supporting employment and economic well-being for low-income individuals and families. Multiple human service programs address workforce engage- ment in various ways and degrees; these include Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and child-care assistance, among others. All of these programs contribute to work engagement but because of program differences, they frequently operate in isolation from each other or, at best, cannot be coordinated and leveraged to maximumadvantage. Multiple programs end up serving the same populations through fragmented and inflexible

See Collaborative Centers on page 40

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