Chautauqua Opportunities Implements Continuums of Care to Assist Families Toward Self Sufficiency

COI has implemented a comprehensive screening, assessment and tracking system to better facilitate individual and household progress toward self sufficiency. Customers are screened at intake against a Family and Youth Development Matrix.  Customers are evaluated in areas such as employment, job retention, housing, education, legal issues, physical and mental health, substance abuse, group and peer relationships, family relationships, and recreation.  Individuals and households are assessed  on a scale ranging from "In-Crisis to Thriving" along continuums of care in health, housing, youth early care and education, and life skills. A customers' need for services are prioritized based on risk scores and eligibility. Customers work together with navigators to assist in the development of life plans.  Realistic and achievable goals are set an individual progress is measured by movement along the continuums.

The continuums provide clear direction to both customers and staff as they demonstrate  indicators and characteristics of each area; In Crisis, Vulnerable, Stable, Safe and Thriving. By seeing the characteristics of the continuum, customers can get a good idea of incremental life changes that would provide greater stability and independence in major life modalities.  These visual representations will be posted in all of our waiting rooms and in our conference rooms for the community to see the work we do and the progress families are making toward independence and self sufficiency.

The continuums of care in conjunction with a new software system that allows us to track longitudinal progress on each customer, will facilitate COI in reporting on overall agency impact in our county on reducing and eliminating poverty.  It is our intent to report our service impact in terms of impact on county need.  We currently conduct a community assessment of low income households and available services within our county every three years.  We anticipate an annual report that answers that assessment with how we have impacted those needs over a three year period.

We have been fortunate to have visionary governmental partners who have allowed us to break down the standard silos of service delivery to offer our customers a more integrated service approach that better responds to their life needs.  We hop that such and endeavor will facilitate better evaluation of service impact and assist in developing more targeted services to meet local need.

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"Our goal is to break down the "adversarial" relationship that many impoverished families have with schools and other institutions of authority..."

COI
EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR

- Roberta Keller

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