PRE-ACADEMY ASSIGNMENT
INSTRUCTIONS: Please complete Sections I (the Vision) and Section II
(the Reality Assessment) and return it to HSR before the Policy Academy
is convened. It will be up to your team to decide how frequently it
will need to meet beforehand in order to complete the homework assignment
and to adequately prepare for the Academy.
The expectation is that your team will come to the Academy having reached
preliminary consensus on your vision and assessed the current reality
in your State. With feedback from faculty and peers, your team will refine
its vision and reality assessment, and define its goals and assess its
priorities (Section III) at the Academy. You will also begin developing
strategies (Section IV) and action steps (Section V) to help realize
the team's vision.
- The Vision (Your State Tomorrow). The vision is the description
of your "preferred future." It is the fundamental, unique
purpose that identifies the scope of your team's activities. It will
identify
the uniqueness that has led to the creation of your team and will serve
as the reference point for all future decisions. It represents the
foundation for all of your priorities, strategies, plans, and work
assignments.
Although the vision can be modified over time to reflect changing environmental
conditions or different philosophies, it should always serve as a reference
point for strategic thought and action at specific points in time.
- Define your "preferred" future (i.e., coordinating
services and housing, maximizing funding flexibility and capacity,
availability
and accessibility of resources, integrating systems of care, strategic
priorities, development of affordable housing, etc.).
- What will be the government’s role in this future? (e.g.,
helping clients achieve self-sufficiency, ensuring an adequate
safety net,
etc.)?
- What roles will others play (such as faith-based organizations,
consumers, employers, insurers, providers, and individuals)?
- The Reality Assessment (Your State Today). The
reality assessment is a review and description of the current problem
issues in your State
and the policy actions taken to date to address these critical issues.
Specifically, it involves the assessment of your system's strengths
and weaknesses, including a review of the political environment in
which
you have
to operate. This assessment will be used to help your team narrow its priorities
and identify appropriate strategies for achieving your vision. The reality
assessment should be viewed as a completely separate component from your
vision.
- Brainstorm the current problems/issues requiring attention
in your State.
- Take a comprehensive inventory of current programs, activities,
stakeholders, and resources (real or potential) at your disposal.
- Brainstorm the strengths of your current system. Weaknesses.
Opportunities. Threats.
- Define the current political environment. What previous policy
actions have been taken in the last five to ten years to
address the critical
issues you identified? To what extent are executive, legislative,
administrative, and private sector policymakers positioned
to improve access to mainstream
services for people experiencing chronic homelessness including
persons with serious mental health and/or substance abuse
problems? How are each
held accountable? Is there now significant stakeholder support
to address the causes you identified? Are key actors at the
State level ready to
move forward? Are local communities and non-government stakeholders
ready to move forward? How can the State assist?
- Team Priorities/Goals (Gaps). Priorities/goals
are defined as the gaps(s) between your preferred future (vision) and
the reality
of where
your State is today. These are areas where your team will target its
efforts. Priorities and goals are the concrete, specific aims that
you are seeking to achieve, often within a stated time period. They
form
the guideposts in defining standards of what the team should accomplish.
The formulation of appropriate priorities will be crucial to your team's
success in accomplishing its mission, since these priorities will form
the basis for planning, policy-making, and setting performance standards.
When narrowing team priorities, you should take into consideration
your team's vision of the future, the critical problems/issues identified
by your team, the resources available, and the political environment
in which you have to operate.
- Given limited resources, what aspects of the overall situation
in your State do you plan to address? (e.g. expand the availability
of needed
services, better integrate programs and services, reduce other
system barriers to accessing services, integrate and improve data,
simplify
eligibility requirements, etc.)
- Define your long and short-term goals. What results do you
want to achieve in the next year? The next three to five years?
Why
do you view
these as important?
- What are the challenges to achieving your desired results?
- What can you realistically accomplish in the short-term (six
months to two years)?
- How will achievement of your short-term goals help you
realize your long-term vision?
- What evidence or benchmarks will you need to achieve
to know that you are making progress?
- Strategies With Potential (Tactics). Strategies
with potential are broad ranging tactics that tend to require Statewide
or cross-agency
efforts to affect change in targeted conditions and causes. These are
approaches you have brainstormed that would help close the gaps between
your team's vision and the current reality in your State. Strategies
involve the actual pursuit of your goals. They are the overall aims
to
achieve an end result in accordance with your vision and goals. Short-range
strategies are aims to be accomplished within a period of one year
or less; long-range strategies are aims to be achieved within a period
longer
than one year.
- How must State policies and programs change to achieve your
goals? What changes must occur in your State and local communities
to achieve
your preferred future?
- What approaches, tactics, or methods should States and communities
pursue in order to reach the desired increased access to mainstream
services by people experiencing chronic homelessness (e.g., standardize
eligibility
across programs, implement a systematic approach to information
release, enhance funding and services for multi-needs clients,
etc.)?
- Who has influence over specific policies and programs that
can influence or advance your overall strategies (i.e., the
Governor, State legislators,
program administrators, private sector stakeholders, etc.)?
- Who will be responsible for coordinating the actions (and
actors) needed to implement each strategy?
- What evidence or benchmarks (indicators) will you need
to achieve in order to know that you are making progress?
How
will you collect
this
information?
- Action Steps. Action Steps are specific
activities that depend upon individual or departmental efforts to implement
the broad-ranging
strategies
of your team. They are specific activities that will be undertaken
in accordance with the strategies you have selected. Action steps require
the identification of specific individuals (or entities) to perform
specific
activities within a specified time period. When deciding upon action
steps, it should be taken into consideration exactly who will be responsible
for completing each action, what resources they will require, what
will be their timeline, and who will be affected by their actions.
- What specific actions must be taken to overcome identified
barriers and to implement your strategies?
- Who will be responsible for taking each action? Coordinating
each action?
- What resources will be needed to support each action?
- Who will be affected by each action?
- What is your timeline for completing each action?
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