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Action
Plan
Since the beginning the Children's Planning Council has worked
through a broadly inclusive process, building agreement on incremental
steps toward a shared vision. The first steps-developing the vision,
principles for change, and a geographic framework for planning-demonstrated
the possibilities of this kind of participatory planning. Defining
the elements of a shared plan for action is, however, much more
challenging. It requires difficult choices among competing priorities,
raises the possibility of directing existing resources, and relies
on calibration at multiple levels among thousands of concerned individuals
and organizations.
The primary elements of the action plan that have been developed
thus far are:
- Agreement on long-term outcomes and a regular method of tracking
progress.
- A definition of the strategic directions that will lead
to improvements in these outcomes.
- Agreement on a set of high-priority practical actions
that county government can take to improve outcomes for
families and children in the short term.
- The implementation of a regional infrastructure of service
planning area councils.
The next sections summarize these four major elements of the Children's
Planning Council action plans.
Outcome
Measurement for Family and Children's Services: Data Driven Planning
To meet its overall goal of improving results for Los Angeles County
children, youth, and families, the Children's Planning Council has
initiated a process to measure the well-being of children in the
County. In addition to the rich anecdotal experience of child-serving
professionals, we need objective, measurable indicators that tell
us how we are doing.
One of the Council's first acts was to form its Data Analysis and
Technical Assistance (DATA) Committee. This group of data experts
consists of representatives from the departments of Public Social
Services, Children and Family Services, Probation, Health Services,
Mental health, the Los Angeles County Office of Education, the Los
Angeles Unified School District, United Way, Info Line (a county
wide information and referral service), the Children and Adult Services
Information Systems Advisory Board (CASISAB), the Los Angeles Roundtable
for Children, university-based researchers, and others.
The Committee's first task was to identify outcome areas and statistical
measures that could be tracked from year to year. A position statement
outlining six outcome areas and a set of principals for measuring
outcomes for children was approved by the Board of Supervisors in
January of 1993. The DATA Committee then developed the format and
content of a countywide Children's Score Card to:
- Increase public awareness of the conditions of children and
their families, set expectations for improvement over time, and
track changing conditions.
- Guide program planning and allocation of resources for public
and private agencies that provide services to families and children
by highlighting both successes and areas of greatest need.
- Set shared goals for improvement and standards by which to judge
the adequacy of shared efforts to improve the conditions of children.
The first Children's Score Card was issued jointly by the Children's
Planning Council and United way in United Way's 1994 State of
the County report. The most recent Children's Score Card, again
issued jointly in United Way's 1996 State of the County report.
It is accompanied by a new pilot effort, the Community Conditions
for Children's Score Card, which represents a first attempt to develop
an understanding of how community context affects children and families.
These score cards embody the Council's commitment to developing
common goals and shared responsibility for achieving desired outcomes;
such common understanding can help cut across the many organizational
and community boundaries that currently separate efforts on behalf
of children and families.
Los
Angeles County Children's Outcome Areas
Approved, Los Angeles County
Board of Supervisors: January 26, 1993
Outcome 1: Good Health
Outcome 2: Economic Well-Being
Outcome 3: Safety and Survival
Outcome 4: Emotional and Social Support/Adult Support
for Children
Outcome 5: Achievement and Readiness to participate
in the Workforce
Strategic
Directions for Change
Approved,Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors: December
10, 1996
All of the Children's Planning Council's efforts have
been designed to focus energy and resources-to the fullest extent
possible-on improving the future of every child and youth in the
County.
The reality, however, is that too many children have
little hope of our Vision's "safe, healthy, and nurturing"
childhood; some despair of even reaching adulthood at all. For reasons
both too familiar to explain and too overwhelming to comprehend-including
poverty, racism, drugs, and hopelessness- the systems that were
designed in a bygone era to provide a 'safety net' for the few have
become primary resources for very large numbers of children and
families.
In fact, the Children's Data Match report found
that by 1993, half the County's children and more than half of its
families with children required services-particularly income support
and basic health care-from county government. Such high need has
outstripped government's capacity to respond effectively. It is
clear that traditional assumptions about how best to support the
development of our children need to change. We must develop a new
set of beliefs, directions, and strategies if we are ever to realize
out vision.
Despite the success of various initiatives and programs,
the County as a whole has not yet been able to make the leap from
how systems work now, within the customary boundaries, to a collective
effort as complex and multifaceted as that envisioned by the Children's
Planning Council is a long-term process, one that will require determination,
perseverance, and political will. It will also require a substantial
transition period.
During this transition, Los Angeles will face a number
of difficult challenges: developing broad community understanding
and desire for involvement, challenging Federal and state guidelines
to free dollars for prevention and early intervention, decentralizing
public and private services delivery, building community-based supports
for families and children, persuading charitable and philanthropic
organizations to invest in change, and coordinating numerous reform
efforts across multiple jurisdictions.
The Children's Planning Council has developed a shared
understanding of the changes that must occur. Using that understanding,
the Council issued this call to action, building on the following
key directions and strategies that can create the infrastructure
for change.
Directions
1. Joint efforts among communities, government,
and the private sector must accept shared responsibility and accountability
for improving outcomes for children, families, and communities.
Demonstrating success with today's resources can help build the
case for increased investment in the future. Together, we must
commit ourselves to discovering what works, rather than allocating
blame and shifting responsibility from one system to another. Together,
we must encourage experimentation to develop plausible, testable,
and "do-able" theories of change, and to share information
on both successes and failures. Together, we can make a much more
compelling argument for the additional resources needed to invest
in our children and our future than can any one agency on its own-by
using, combing, and leveraging resources so everyone can benefit.
2. Communities must determine their own priorities
and then work with both government and the private sector to achieve
the desired goals.
Direction must come from community members closest to children
and families- and those most invested in their welfare-rather than
from government and philanthropic funders, who tend to be farthest
away from the daily lives of children and families throughout the
many different communities in Los Angeles. The understanding and
know-how of communities, joined with policy role and the resources
of government and the private sector, will make it possible to move
toward the infrastructure the Council envisions.
3. Government and private sector services must
be further decentralized so that they can support community-based
decision-making and allow for real and practical partnerships with
community groups. Effective partnerships between government
and community groups have sprung up throughout the County, but we
still have a long way to go before such partnerships are the rule
rather than the exception. The size and complexity of Los Angeles
County, as well as dramatic changes at the Federal and state levels,
require that local government/municipalities be more responsive
and communities more involved in decision-making around children
and families.
4. We must prioritize and reinvest monies now being
spent on high-end services to fund prevention. Since 1988, the
cost of non-prevention services has increased over 30 percent. To
resolve a series of fiscal crises, we have repeatedly cut back on
the very activities- child care, youth leadership development, primary
health care, early counseling, parent education, and after-school
activites- that are necessary to help families keep their children
off the streets, out of trouble, healthy, and productive. It is
important to build "prevention" into all levels of the
system to assure that children and youth who get into trouble receive
the help they need to work their way back out again. As we now know,
the long-term cost of failing to prevent the escalation of trouble
is much too high. Systems do not turn around overnight, however,
and bridge money must be identified to invest in prevention until
this investment becomes self-financing.
Strategies
To make progress on key outcomes throughout a transition
period, the Children's Planning Council recommends that we develop
a process of focused Countywide experimentation. We know how children
are doing currently in each of the five key outcome areas, both
Countywide and in each of the eight board-adopted Service Planning
Area Councils and the American Indian Children's Council.
1. Community/Neighborhood
Wonderful, difficult, and-in some cases-astonishing work is
happening in communities. Pubic and private service providers, funder,
community leaders, and residents have begun the processes of community-based
planning-setting goals, developing priories, collecting data, and
agreeing on desired outcomes-and are moving to explore both the
responsibilities and the potential impact of community-based decision-making
and resource allocation. This work must be supported, continued,
and expanded.
2. Service Planning Area/Region
Discussions should continue about the practical and effective ways
to develop regional-level capacities to determine priorities, to
define linkages between local planners and Countywide policy-makers,
to identify and remove policy and systemic barriers to progress,
and to assist in leveraging public/private resources.
3. Countywide
During 1997, the Children's Planning Council should develop a set
of recommendations that will improve results for children in each
of the five outcome areas. Considerations should include:
What initiatives are already underway?
What and where are the existing resources?
Who are he key players and potential partners who should participate?
How do we educate and mobilize participants toward successful
initiatives?
What data is available or necessary to track change systematically?
How do we address these recommendations within the context of
welfare and devolution?
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