A disclaimer: I’ve worked, rather closely, with the organizations that are affected by what I’m writing about, and I can not be fully objective about this. The people I’m talking about are colleagues and friends.
There was a fairly important legislative session yesterday that included the passage of a bill dubbed “challenges for change” which is likely to have significant impact on our economy, and especially our most vulnerable citizens.
One very specific significant impact will affect child care, its overall quality and the access child care providers have to state resources. As the report on which this legislation was built states:
State human service professionals struggle to create unified and integrated support to consumers and communities. The existing operating environment is rigid and often hinders coordinated policy and practice, as well as inadvertently promotes redundancy and inefficiencies, while failing to address a person or family’s multiple, interrelated needs. Federal funding is a primary – although not the only – contributor to this deficiency as it supports an array of public sector human services that operate in programmatic, fiscal and reporting silos.
This is not incorrect. A single family can have multiple needs which intersect several different departments. Child care, health care, unemployment… all these are handled separately and can easily ask for the same information multiple times through many interviews.
But here’s the thing– now that the legislature has approved this bill, it’s not looking as likely to manifest itself as providing stronger services. It’s looking more likely to centralize the services in Waterbury, eliminating person-to-person contact. There are good and bad things about this, but doing so will provide for collateral damage.
Currently, the Child Development Division has partner organizations throughout the state that provide support for both families and child care providers. Many of these organizations have existed for well over a decade.
Centralizing human services in Waterbury will eliminate a chunk of the staff for many of these organizations and eliminate the option for local walk-in support for people seeking child care. Furthermore, the other services that these organizations provide, such as training and support for child care providers will still need to continue.
But there’s a big difference between an agency that has 10-20 people working for it that provides a multitude of services, and one that’s had most of its staff reduced and has its services cut down to just a few specialized tasks. Fund raising for these partner organizations could easily fall by the wayside and the organizations could end up disintegrating entirely, leaving a huge gap in their local communities.
I’m all for better efficiency and I’m all for stronger sense of integrated service, but I’m not convinced that this is the way to do it, and I’m thinking the likely outcome isn’t better service due to removing barriers and complications. I’m thinking the likely outcome is just less service due to the remoteness of the agencies and the lack of direct human contact.
I get that this is important, but I think the legislature moved fast enough on this to make my head spin and I think one of the reasons they did it now was because there was so much else going on that it could slide under the radar.
It’s up to us to see to it that that doesn’t happen.
Is nothing different than the attempt ConHogan made several years ago for better living thru Chemestry…errrr komputers and job sharing… never materialized much.. later JimDoesless mounted a great computer workload project in the agency, which never produced a report and I think the head of it vanished mid project…
The ideas take time to develop and the system takes time to soak them up and implement. This process allows neither. It will mainfest iteself in Jim=less jobs in the agency responsible for helping the people who most need it, unless the legislature puts a brake on where it can go when the $$$ dont show up…
The fundamental thought that Government is inefficient by nature is fundamental in its flaw. We are already to the point where our agencies and departments are on the border of being nonfunctional.
Look for payroll to absorb what this initiative can’t produce…
Interesting that one of the big considerations for then LT GOV Racine was the creation and affordability of childcare… maybe that theme will spark some life into a discussion we should be having about government.
It dawns on me that most of the people (taking a big off topic jump here) who are yelling that Burlington Telecom should not be a govt department, are more than happy with government being a provider of parking at the airport (in competition with local lots), fire service (which once was provided by fire clubs/insurance companies), the water department, electric department and ….the list goes on…
just something I had to get out… Glad Andy Montroll came out in favor of Democracy. So tired of listening to KurtKwickStop pouting that he should have been mayor..
Having to deal with different human service agencies/departments who don’t share information and require different forms of proof of circumstances is so frustrating for the people who need help. I’m not just talking about a minor inconvenience either. I’ve lost so many hours of work trying to navigate the systems when my family has needed help.
I think I’ve mentioned here before that after months of trying to prove to the child care subsidy office that I was employed (after already proving it separately to PATH with a tree’s worth of paperwork for my kids health care), I finally had my employer go into the child care subsidy office and sign something in person saying I worked for him. A few days later I got a letter saying that wasn’t sufficient proof. By the time I finally got approved for the childcare subsidy there was only 1 week left of the 3 month job.
Anyone who has had to apply for any one form of assistance (food stamps, Medicaid/VHAP, fuel assistance, child care, unemployment, disability, etc) knows how time consuming and emotionally difficult it is to do once. Making people do it multiple times is a waste of resources for both the state and the people who need help. Streamlining the processes into 1 application and 1 approval process is such a great idea!
A couple weeks ago I needed emergency surgery that I couldn’t afford and the surgeon said I could get an emergency care waiver from PATH, which was great! But instead the surgeon or myself being able to mail, fax or email the document to PATH saying I needed the surgery, I had to deliver it in person and meet with a social worker so she could determine if I was in need of surgery because of “bleeding or severe pain”. As if a social worker can better diagnose that then a surgeon?!?! It sounds unbelievable as I type this, but seriously, they make people who need emergency surgery come into the PATH office to get approved! The most vulnerable people in our state don’t need human contact, they need immediate (or at least reasonably fast) help with their basic survival needs.
This “challenges for change” ought to be called “changes for all folks who are challenged,” not good changes by the way. Douglas, Shumlin and Smith owe a collective apology to the citizens of Vermont for the infliction of this fraud. Only those who believe in the toothfairy and pixiedust could think for a minute that there will be millions of dollars of savings in this fiasco.