Introduction
Those involved in the Human Services Sector know that it is changing very rapidly. The rapid pace of change makes it imperative for all human service organizations, both oversight agencies and providers, to make some very important strategic decisions. These will not be strategic decisions that are designed to help an organization maintain the status quo, rather decisions that are designed to help organizations to significantly change the status quo and allow them to transform.
All human service organizations need to anticipate where the human services sector is going and to then to develop plans to help prepare and be ready for when the future becomes the present. No one wants to get left behind. Everyone is wondering two things: how to identify and then understand those emerging trends that will introduce the greatest levels of change into the sector and how to prepare to respond to the challenges presented in those trends by identifying and then developing the skills and capacities needed to be installed within organizations to ensure their future success.
“For so long we just told stories to prove that what we were doing was important and was working. Stories aren’t enough anymore. Now we have to produce the results that people are expecting.”
Preparing for Transformation
The ways that human service organizations have done their work in the past, and for some that past spans many years, must today transform. Over time organizations developed certain patterns of thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and behaviors that they may now need to reconsider.
Many organizations serving youth and families from the child welfare system often saw themselves as overseeing a process designed to protect children from their families. When they worked with children, they often saw themselves as being responsible to temporarily take the place of their parents. They saw themselves as “raising other people’s children.” Today human service organizations are serving youth and families from a variety of systems, some of which include child welfare, juvenal justice, education and commercial insurance, office of refugee resettlement, etc. No matter what door a youth and their family enter a treatment intervention program through, it is essential family be at the forefront of their work and have a strong voice within the organization.
Today organizations are also being asked to help to strengthen families, and to assure families remain together whenever safe and possible. Organizations are also being asked to develop a broad array of community services and partnerships that will make that possible for most families, most of the time. In order to successfully accomplish this changing role, many organizations will need to reconsider many of the assumptions that they have come to make about what we they do and how they do it.
The ways organizations plan their treatment interventions may also need to change. Organizations must assure youths and families are included into the planning processes. Organizations are no longer being asked to plan for families, but to plan with families. The services they offer and the supports they provide should be designed, with youth and family input, to meet the needs that those youths and families advise us are most important for them.
We Organizations have to learn to form partnerships with those they seek to serve. They have to learn to listen more closely and adjust more quickly. Organizations have to prepare to transform. They have to find ways to incorporate youth and family voice at all levels of the organization, from the board room to the treatment team. This toolkit is designed to help them to prepare.
Overview
BBI Transformational Change Readiness Assessment Tools
The BBI Transformational Change Readiness Assessment Tool (CRAT) was developed by BBI as a guide for organizations to use in addressing change. It was not designed to be used as an outcome tool, nor is it a normed instrument. Rather, the BBI Transformational Change Readiness Assessment Tool (CRAT) should be used by organizations to evaluate the readiness of an organization to begin to transform its practices with a goal of reducing its reliance on providing predominantly residential interventions by offering an array of youth, family, and adult services to its oversight agencies in order to meet the ever-changing needs of the communities it serves. Your answers to the questions will help your organization evaluate key areas of change readiness upon which to focus from a variety of perspectives.
BBI has identified ten transformational goal areas that are all dynamically interconnected. Organizations will have to find ways to address at least partially all of these in some fashion. However, it is recommended that organizations begin their efforts by selecting the three key transformational change goal areas that will guide the most change in the organization.
The 10 Transformational Goal Areas are:
- Desired Outcomes
- Strategic Planning and Generating Support through Strategic Communications
- Change Leadership
- Organizational Culture
- Developing/Expanding Services & Supports Based on Systemic and Family-Focus Practices
- Providing Training, Technical Assistance, and Workforce Development
- Trauma-Informed Capacity
- Community-Focused Commitment
- Implementing Policy, Regulatory, and Partnership Changes (Business Acumen)
- Creating or Improving Financing Strategies (Funding Diversity and Service Offerings)
Change readiness does not specifically relate to an organization’s current capacity in any of the ten transformational change goal areas; rather, an organization is change-ready in any transformational change goal area when:
- It understands and accepts the clear and indisputable strategic importance of that goal area for the future success of the organization.
- It is willing to commit the resources of the entire organization to successfully address that Transformational Change Goal Area.
- It is willing to develop a focused three-year transformational plan with measurable outcomes to assure that the organization achieves the goals.
The Transformational Readiness Assessment Tool is available in two versions, one for oversight agencies and one for provider organizations that typically include residential programs.
Ideally, the Transformational Change Readiness Assessment Tool should be completed by the organization’s most Senior Leadership Team.
For provider organizations teams should be minimally composed of the CEO/Executive Director, CFO, and the Chief Clinical Staff Member. Additional members of the Senior Leadership Team should also be encouraged to complete the survey. It is recommended that additionally, at the CEO/Executive Director’s discretion, the Board Chair be invited to complete the survey.
For oversight agencies the assessment should preferably be completed by the Senior Leadership Teams from the various divisions involved in your State’s Transformational Change Efforts. These individuals might typically include senior leadership staff from child welfare, behavioral health, juvenile justice etc. within roles that encompass practice, policy, and fiscal and regulatory levels
The links to the organizational and residential surveys are below.
Transformational Change Readiness Assessment Tool (Agency Version)
Transformational Change Readiness Assessment Tool (Oversight Agency Version)
If desired, BBI can contract with an organization to make these available via an online version of the survey, provide analysis of the results, and consultation as your organization navigates their individualized change process. Please reach out to Mark Nickell at mnickell@togetherthevoice.org for more information.
