2-Attachment 2-B.1 (2).docx

Attachment 2-B Offeror’s Experience and Capacity The Offeror is cautioned that it is the Offeror's sole responsibility to submit information related to the evaluation categories and that the State of Arizona is under no obligation to solicit such information if it is not included with the Offeror's proposal. Failure of the Offeror to submit such information may cause an adverse impact on the evaluation of the Offeror's proposal. It is strongly discouraged for you to copy the Scope of Work in lieu of providing unique responses below.

OFFER MAY BE DETERMINED AS NON-RESPONSIVE IF ALL QUESTIONS ARE NOT ANSWERED FULLY.

Question 1: Describe the Entity’s experience providing parenting time services, including the number of years of experience, history and capability.

Offeror Response:

Maximum Family Care operates as a single-member limited liability corporation. We were established in 2017, but together our team total over 50+ years of experience working with families. The education and experience of Maximum Family Care consist of a retired Vice President and Executive Vice Provost for Arizona State University (ASU), a former Contract Compliance Officer, a former state and county Program Developer and Program Manager, a former Counselor, a Lead Case Aide, a school educator and youth leader, a family and child advocate, graduates of Arizona State University, Stanford University, and University of Wisconsin- Madison.

Our team holds over 30+ years of experience at a high-ranking university where they ensured academic, financial and operational priorities were carried out. Our team holds several years of experience in developing and implementing programs for the Department of child safety and the Department of Education. This experience is used in the professional development and training of Maximum Family Care staff. This experience allows us to train staff to understand the mission of the contract, to understand the implementation of delivering contractual obligations, provide families with strength-base support, and ensure the agency is complying with the special terms and conditions of the scope of work. This experience will also be used to develop and implement policies and measurable objectives for the agency. In addition to meeting the programmatic deliverable of Parenting time, while maintaining the agency’s values and children’s safety.

We have 10+ years of experience in mental health. This experience will be utilized to collaborate with families in helping them achieve their optimal health. Maximum Family Care, understands that mental health is important because it impacts a family’s ability to cope, adapt, parent, communicate, and problem solve. We want those we serve to be healthy emotionally, as we know a healthy emotional state can promote productivity and effectiveness in caregiving.

We have 15 years of experience in supervision. It is our pleasure to indicate we have been an active Parenting Time Service Provider with the Department of Child Safety since 2017. Our efforts and experience have shown partners we have the capability to successfully engage families while ensuring their safety and strengthening their family’s resilience. This is evident by families receiving individualized services that meet their family needs based on their referral, service duration, frequency and level of supervision outlined. We have and will continue to ensure families are receiving the right service at the right time. Services that strengthen their family protective factors, which may reduce risk of abuse/neglect. We have and will ensure our families are provided with supervision that meets the family safety requirements and will also prepare the parent/caregiver to meet the children’s emotional and physical needs of their child(ren). We have and will prepare the parent/caregiver to have the necessities for the visit such as: food, beverages, extra clothes, pampers, etc. We will provide additional training for our staff as they will prepare parents/caregivers for child(ren)’s reactions at parenting time. This additional training will allow our staff to help parents cope with their feelings to assist them during parenting time. This will be done in a companywide training, Practice Responsive Caregiving Training.

Our goal is to ensure the parents/caregivers gain an understanding of the child(ren) temperament and feelings toward visitation prior to the visit. We understand the importance of parents/caregivers being prepared for their interaction with their child(ren). The goal is to always prepare the parents/caregivers to be successful in their parenting interactions and provide them with strength-base support that helps them maintain successful engagement. Part of this process will be reminding parents/caregivers of the uniqueness of their family. Provide the family with a safe parenting experience based on their referral conditions and restrictions. Therefore, they may need to think of individual ways to nurture their child(ren) growth and development. While still maintaining the safety and welfare of the children.

We have 50 years of experience in working with families and children. This experience will be used to motivate and support our families. This will be seen with our families as we develop a positive alliance. We have trained staff that have advocated for families and their needs. As evident by our staff communicating a family’s barriers that hinder them from being successful in their parental interaction. We aim to help them overcome their past experiences and barriers to service. While still holding them accountable to reach the necessary goals of their family. Therefore, we can assist our families in making the necessary behavioral changes to enhance their protective capacities and strengthen their protective factors. In addition to assisting them with community resources and establishing self-sufficiency.

county, and working in collaboration with DCS. We have demonstrated our history of serving families any day of the week, including weekends and evening hours to accommodate the needs of the family.

We ensure families are receiving the best service. We ensure we have staff that speak their language and if we don’t, we have a current contract with AFL (A Foreign Language Service) to provide interpretation services to our families. We do not discriminate, as we work with all individuals of different genders, age, sexual identification, culture, and language. Our service is culturally relevant and linguistically appropriate and gender responsive.

As a skilled service provider for AZDCS since 2017, we have observed and monitored the interactions of the families, while actively supporting the parent/caregiver, children, and placements. The training and experiences our staff demonstrated show our ability to handle diverse families and family conflicts. We have and will continue to show our capability of intervening and terminating parenting time if it becomes harmful to the child or other parent/caregiver. Our staff will continue to be knowledgeable on curriculum-based parenting skills. These skills will assist staff in supervising and working with parents to become educated and promote healthy parenting interactions. With our staff having efficient training and qualified leadership, it shows in our staff’s ability to speak accurately to families about what to expect from parenting time program. We establish expectations on what they can expect from their Case Aide. We sit with parents to ensure their understanding of guidelines and rules (DCS Guidelines) and offer suggestions on parenting with empathy towards children’s needs, using non-violent discipline techniques, and defining the role of the parent and child in a supervised setting.

As we strive to provide quality service to our families, we have also enhanced our internal process to meet the fidelity of the program. Our staff have over 10 years of managing and ensuring the fidelity of programs. In addition, to writing and managing contracts for state and county entities. These skills have improved our capability and will continue to have us implement the program to its true fidelity. Our staff have the experience of working on a variety of program initiatives within context that are complex and vulnerable to change in political and economic climates. This experience will allow us to continue to achieve the results of Parenting Time Services throughout the entirety of the award, despite the unknown changes we all may face. The quality of implementation skills our staff brings have and will continue to play a significant part in us achieving program outcomes. Our staff understands contracts and contract obligations. This skill will continue to have our agency meeting program goals. In addition to monitoring our agency’s fidelity and compliance measures.

In our efforts to continue to support the Department and the Parenting time program our agency continues to build on obtaining additional training and knowledge that will allow us to service the diverse families. Since 2017, we wanted to expand our knowledge and each year we have added and revised our polices to ensure success. This is evident by our supervisor receiving training in Protective Capacities and SAFE AZ by the Statewide Coordinator of PA/SVO and AZ CWTI staff. We took the initiative to gain this knowledge and use the skills provided to implement better service and to be aligned with DCS. Our staff have worked in collaboration with other community agencies, who are subject matter experts to obtain knowledge on the changing climate of the Maricopa County community. We are learning how to be a change agent in supporting families in our community. Our education and training have provided us with the opportunity to deliver quality services to families. In addition, since February 2023 until the initiative ended, we requested a minimum of 25 referrals each month, in efforts to support DCSs efforts to reduce the waiting list. Our experience, history, and capability outline in this scope of work demonstrates we have the capability to provide parenting time services.

As a current contract holder, we have shown our capability of accepting all cases upon receipt, providing all service indicated on the service approval, servicing families in our awarded

Question 2: Provide a detailed plan of how your agency will be ready to serve cases on the go-live date, after award. The response shall at a minimum describe and provide a response for each of the following bullet points listed below:

· Provide the anticipated number of referrals your agency expects to have the capacity to serve on the first day of contract implementation.

· Does your agency anticipate an increase in capacity throughout the contract term? If yes, describe your plan for scaling up, including timelines, staffing, and resource allocation.

· Describe how your agency tracks and manages service capacity and the progression of referrals (cases) in real-time. What tools, systems, or processes do you use to ensure timely scheduling and service delivery?

Offeror Response:

Our agency is currently able to serve 90 cases each month. On the first day of contract implementation we will be able to handle 100 cases.

Agency Plan to be ready on go-live date:

To ensure we meet the needs of our staff, the department, and our families we will be implementing several plans all running concurrently. Below is our transition plan of how our agency will be ready to service cases.

Office Personnel Plan As a current provider, we understand we are transitioning cases from one contract to another. We understand this is a process within the referral unit of moving cases from one contract to another. Therefore, our plan is to track all current cases and ensure they all have been transitioned to the new contract. Any referral closures that happen during the transition period will be immediately communicated to the referral unit to ensure they are not transitioned over, and they are properly closed out under the correct contract. We will also upload all the new forms onto our intranet to ensure staff are using the correct documentation.

We are currently tracking our capacity and will continue to do so as we transition. Once we are awarded the contract, we will continue to put in additional resources into hiring and onboarding staff. In addition to maintaining the capacity of our current staff. Retention is our number one priority, and we want our staff to be compensated fairly, have benefits that meet the needs of their family, have a work life balance, and be supported. We at Maximum Family Care believe that by providing our staff with the necessary support we will be able to minimize the turnover. By minimizing staff leaving our agency it will benefit the families with continuity of care. This is important to our agency and families to have one consistent Case Aide instead of the changing of staff over and over. We understand from a parent’s perspective quality care is hindered when you must retell your life experiences over and over due to an agency’s turnover.

In addition to maintaining a low turnover rate, we plan on utilizing all the hiring websites to recruit staff. We have multiple relationships with jobsites, and we are constantly looking for new employees and posting new positions. By networking and utilizing all hiring platforms we will be able to hire immediately to maintain or increase our capacity. Therefore, once the contract goes live, we will already have current and new staff with an open capacity to service families. Our agency will be prepared to provide the Referral Unit with an exact number of families we can serve, with an internal goal of a minimum of 25 additional cases.

Training Personal Plan We understand to service any family, our staff will need to be trained in the Parenting Time Services contract and duty assignments (this includes Summary of Parenting time, Discharge Summary, Parenting Time guidelines, contract requirements and duty requirements). Once we are awarded, we will schedule mandatory training and will have staff ready to service families by the start of award. In addition, to complete all annual training as needed, we have incorporated a new training called Practice Responsive Caregiving Training. Practice Responsive Caregiver training will align our staff with parenting time activities that are age/developmentally appropriate. Our staff will be able to recognize if the parents are meeting the child(ren) physical and emotional needs, ensuring parents respond properly to child(ren) communications and behaviors. Finally, we will train them in providing supportive prompting during parenting time.

As new hires are coming in, they will receive Maximum Family internal training, Parenting Time Services New Contract training, Practice Responsive Training, and at least one shadowing experience, before being assigned a caseload. Required DCS training, including car seat training, Arizona mandate reporter law training, guardian training, boundaries, preparing/ending parenting time training, ADCS Parenting Time Case Aide Training, and community resources will also be implemented.

Capacity Plan Our agency’s plan is to continue looking for qualified adults to hire. Our agency will aggressively advertise and host hiring events in the community. We will continue to use a variety of social platforms to recruit staff and if possible, offer a bonus after maintaining three months of employment. Our agency plans on making offers quickly to candidates to show the candidate that our agency is thrilled to have their expertise. We will also circle back with lost candidates to see if they are still interested in employment. Our intention is to offer candidates a better financial opportunity or a better work environment that is flexible to their needs. This will require us to offer salaries and benefits that are competitive with other social service entities as parenting time requirements are increased and will require more from our case aides and supervisors.

In addition to hiring, we will review all current cases and look for areas in the Case Aides’ schedule which will allow them to service additional families. This will allow us to maximize our capacity with current staff. By incorporating both plans, our agency will be able to reach our goal of getting a minimum of 25 additional cases at the start of the new contract.

Plan on Performing Outreach Outreach is a vehicle for parent/caregiver engagement and is the first step in rebuilding their family. Therefore, our plan is to train our staff on the new contract. Our team is already experienced in communicating and scheduling visits with parents/caregivers and out-of-home care personnel. We will continue to develop a supportive alliance with our families by engaging and building a rapport with them during initial intake. This allows us to identify and address any barriers to service, discuss the Parenting Time service, and develop an initial rapport. If any barriers or concerns are discussed, our staff will communicate those immediately to the assigned ADCS Specialist. If a parent is receiving services through the Nurturing Parenting Program NPP, we will gather all necessary information to collaborate and coordinate services.

Our plan is to continue to provide the parents/caregivers with all information regarding who their Case Aide is and how to reach them directly. We will also provide them with the Case Aide direct supervisor’s name and contact information. In addition to discussing the frequency and the time of the visit.

Our plan will also incorporate reviewing and discussing the Parent Time Plan, if provided by ADCS. Our intention is to ensure the parent/caregiver understands and builds an alignment with the Case Aide. We will go over the Parenting Time Guidelines and discuss possible reactions their children may have when engaging in Parenting Time services. Finally, we will describe the role of Case Aide during their parenting time and what they can expect from their Case Aide and agency as we work together.

If we are given a family where the case involves allegations of sexual abuse, our agency has created a plan to ensure we inform the parent, at initial outreach, what is prohibited during the visit. Our staff will discuss the importance of not photographing, taking pictures or audio of the child(ren) during the visit. Discuss how extended physical contact with the child(ren) cannot occur. If diapering the child(ren) is needed or assisting with the bathroom is needed, this will be done by Case Aide. We will not allow them to bring any monetary gifts or objects from their home. Finally, letting them know any engagement of behaviors or actions that is prohibited or restricted by their ADCS Specialist will result in their parenting time visitation being cancelled and ADCS Specialist notified within 24hrs of the incident. We understand the importance of ensuring the mental and physical safety of the child(ren).

Management Support Plan Our management team will be trained and have access to the Parenting Time Service contract. In addition, our management team has created a supportive environment to assist our staff in reaching their full protentional. Quality care is extremely important to our agency. Therefore, we have revamped our supervision for the Case Aides. The plan is to offer supervision that will enhance our staff’s ability to perform their role. As our staff transition to the Parenting Time Service duties, we want to ensure they are supported with the necessary training, resources, and knowledge to effectively do their job. Our management team will offer additional support and coaching to all staff, when needed.

Agency Plan to maintain services after the go-live date Our agency has created a detailed plan prior to the go-live date to ensure a successful transition once we have been awarded the contract.

Our Staff Personnel Plan (after awarded) We will continue to monitor and track cases and capacity. We will continue to utilize all hiring websites to recruit new staff. In addition to collecting the data and submitting Quarterly Provider Program Summary Reports to the FCS mailbox by the 15th day of the month following each quarter of the fiscal year. If a data-focused workgroup is facilitated, we will participate and provide their level of expertise to the group. We will also upload into Guardian the Summary of Parenting time form within seven days following parenting time. In addition, upload the Discharge Summary Reports within seven business days of service referral closure. This will be given to the ADCS Specialist for approval and then will be entered into Guardian within seven business days following approval. Finally, we will monitor and maintain the confidentiality of the case record for each family we provide services to. This will require them to ensure all referral packets are present and all documents related to the service we provide are present. All reports and forms are present. There is a documented record, included in the appropriate case file of all contact our agency had with, parent/caregiver, child(ren), Out of Home Caregiver, ADCS Specialist, NPP worker, community agency, the court, etc. Finally, ensuring any significant incidents are documented with an incident report included in the case file.

For families participating in the Nurturing Parenting Program (NPP) we will coordinate parenting time with their NPP provider. This will consist of us providing them with parenting time of the visits, date of the visits and the location of the visits. We will continue to work in collaboration with the NPP provider as this will ensure the parent/caregiver meets their weekly observation and nurturing parent time activities.

For those parents/caregivers that have allegations of sexual abuse. We will ensure they are following all the rules set forth in the contract and in their referral. We will discuss what is prohibited and ensure the safety of the child(ren). If the parent/caregiver fails to follow the rules set forth, the visit will be terminated and the ADCS Specialist will be notified within 24 hours.

Training Personal Plan (after awarded) Our training plan will continue throughout the contract period. Case Aides and other staff will continue to be trained in the Parenting Time Services contract and their duty assignment. In addition, to all Maximum Family care training, for those needing refresher training, our training team will provide additional training and support to ensure the fidelity of the program. Our training team will continue to monitor and ensure all staff participate in a minimum of fifteen hours of training within thirty days of hire and annually. Once Case Aides completes all their necessary training, we will assign cases to them.

Capacity Plan (after awarded) Our agency will continue to look for qualified adults to increase our capacity over time. Our agency is committed to meeting the needs of the program and the families who need Parenting Time Service. To ensure we can do this, our agency plan is to continue to find skilled employees. We will continue to recruit on social platforms, advertisement, and word of mouth. As our capacity grows our request for families shall increase. Our agency’s goal is to continue to collaborate and work with ADCS to eliminate families from having to be waitlisted.

Plan on Performing Outreach (after awarded) Our agency will adhere to the Outreach plan and continue outreach to our families using the training and plan provided to them. We will contact the parent/caregiver via phone within 24 hours of receipt of the referral; continuing to establish a rapport, identifying barriers (communicating them to ADCS Specialist), and briefly discussing the Parenting Time Guidelines. We will inform families of parenting time schedules (time/frequency/location). Parents/caregivers will also be given a copy of these schedules. We will discuss the role of Parenting time, possible reactions of the child(ren) to parenting time, and expectations of the parent/caregiver and the Case Aide. We will identify the assigned Case Aide and Supervisor and provide contact information to them. If their Case Aide or Supervisor changes, our staff will provide those updates as well. This will also be communicated to the ADCS Specialist and their Supervisor.

Management Support Plan (after awarded) Our management support plan will continue to be executed throughout the entirety of the contract. We understand the importance of having a supportive team and want to continue to enrich our staff with knowledge and expertise. Our management team will continue to staff cases with our Case Aide and check-in with those families who need additional resources.

Agency anticipated number of referrals we will be servicing and capacity on first day of contract:

Our agency anticipates at the start of the contract we will be able to request a minimum of 25 new cases. We are a current provider servicing 86 cases. On average, our full-time Case Aide can service a minimum of 4-6 families and part-time averaging 2 cases. This depends on the total number of children, the location of the children, the location of the visits, the duration and frequency of the referral. We are anticipating hiring a minimum of five new staff plus using the open availability of our current 37 staff.

Anticipated growth in capacity:

Our agency does anticipate growth in capacity and capability throughout the entirety of the contract. It is our plan to maximize the staff we have, without limiting their personal time, energy, and health. As we know these are things that will affect their ability to operate at peak levels. To ensure our current staff’s ability to service families, we must increase salaries and benefits and capacity as it will reduce turnover. We understand and monitor our agency’s capacity daily as it determines our accessibility to service families.

Method used to monitor capacity and referrals “in real time”:

Our agency currently monitors its capacity and referrals in real time. Our ability to accept referrals is contingent on our capacity. Therefore, we have designed in our internal network a live schedule that monitors every member of staff’s active caseload, capacity, and referrals. It entails our staff’s first and last name, contact phone number and email. It also informs us of all languages they are fluent in and of the city they reside in. Often, we receive calls from ADCS Specialist, parents/caregivers, and Out of Home Caregiver needing Case Aides’ information. This allows us to have immediate access to the information to provide. Next to the person’s name we have all the active cases they service Sunday to Saturday. It also includes the start time, duration, frequency, and end date of the visit. By having this information, we can see each staff member’s capacity to service families. Once new hires have completed all the necessary training, they are added to the schedule, and we start the process of assigning referrals.

Our schedule allows us to see cases that are approaching closure. Once a case reaches 30 days prior to its closure date, the case on the schedule transitions from green to yellow. When a case turns yellow, it is a reminder that we have a case approaching closure and we need to reach out to the ADCS for an extension. We will continue to make weekly contact until the case is re-referred. If the cases are not re-referred, our staff will move it to the “cases to be closed” section. At this time, we will complete the Discharge Summary and closure process. By knowing when cases are closing it allows us to predict upcoming capacity. All staff personnel have access to this schedule, and they are allowed to see their and team schedule.

This is important especially when other team members need to find coverage. Other Case Aides have access to the family’s information on the schedule and Facesheet (an internal document we use) which holds all the information needed to cover a visit, such as parent/caregiver’s contact information, location address, duration/frequency/time of the visit. It identifies all participants who can and cannot attend. The location of the children and if car seats are needed and specifically which kind of car seat to use.

During our Wednesday weekly meeting our management team discusses new hires, training, referrals progression, supervision, capacity, and referral assignment. At that time the team determines our capacity and reviews current referrals (case) progression to determine how many referrals we can service come next week. Once referrals are assigned to our agency, we will begin to notify ADCS we have received the new case. We will start a case file for each family. That file is created and stored in our “need to be assigned” folder, then we proceed with outreach. Once outreach is completed and a referral is assigned, it immediately goes onto the schedule to the assigned Case Aide. The case file is then transitioned from a file “to be assigned” folder into the folder of “ongoing cases”.

All case files are stored in our internal secure network. By having a case to be assigned folder, it allows us to monitor referral (case) progression in real time. We can see which cases are still pending assignment, needing interpretation, waiting on updated contact information, dates and notes of our outreach engagement, referral information, parent/caregiver and out of home caregiver contact information, ADCS Specialist and Supervisors contact information and notes on the case status. By using this information instantly, it allows the Management Team to have an oversight of new referrals to ensure they are being serviced timely. Therefore, the methods we use to monitor capacity and referral (case) progression is our internal schedule which tracks current and newly assigned cases. We use weekly management meetings to discuss real time capacity and referral (case) progression. We use supervision with our Case Aides to also monitor case progression, as our staff have direct access to the family and can update us on severance and reunification. If our Case Aides inform us of the transition of a case, we reach out to the ADCS Specialist for confirmation and proceed with the case based off the updated information provided.

Question 3: Provide examples of challenges your agency has encountered in parenting time services and how you addressed them. Include challenges with maintaining contract capacity, if applicable.

As a contracted provider since 2017, our agency faced many challenges. Each situation may be seen as a challenge, but our agency embraced each situation and used it to improve services. We have accepted the challenge and adopted a positive mindset, which has improved our perception and response. DCS Transportation has caused many of our families to miss their visits. Our parents and their children have experienced being picked up late for their visit. They have experienced not getting picked up at all. Both the children and the parents have experienced not getting picked up after the visit. Therefore, we have implemented a process that will support families who use DCS Transportation.

Once a visitation schedule is confirmed we ask parents if transportation is needed. Once we identify the parents who need transportation, we ask them for their pickup and drop off location. We then communicate via email, to DCS the parent’s pick up and drop off address, the address of the visit, the time and day of the visit, the CA assigned and CA contact information. We understand DCS needs about 24-48hrs to set up transportation, therefore notifying them immediately is best practice. This ensures DCS has the allotted time to submit the request. It ensures DCS has accurate information, and it ensures the transportation has our information, if needed.

Our agency now has the direct number to the transportation companies. We have been utilizing this information to build a rapport with dispatch. This allows us to reach out directly to know the status of transportation. We have also built relationships with drivers as well. This allows us to know their exact estimated time of arrival. This relationship has shown small progress, as we have been able to communicate to DCS to renew our parents’ transportation request. Transportation companies have been transparent in letting us know they do not have staff available.

We also provide the parents with their assigned transportation company number. One of our goals for our parents is to advocate for themselves. We ask them to call their transportation company provider the day before and confirm pick up time, location, and return time. We also ask them to obtain the driver's information, so they can call them directly on the day of service. We have learned that being proactive in confirming, we were able to know in advance when the agency was not coming and had the wrong information. The parents were able to correct the information, and our agency was able to communicate immediately to DCS about the situation.

In situations where parents or children do not have transportation available, we do offer them an alternative instead of cancelling. If visits are in the community and there are no restrictions on location, we will move the visit closer to the parent. We try to place the visit in a more accessible location. This ensures a visit, but parents often sacrifice comfort as many visits occur in the visitation center. There are situations where we have moved their location completely and eliminated transportation. Changing locations can cause a longer journey for the child, but we worked in collaboration with parents and placement prior to the transition. For our families whose transportation had not arrived to take them home, we remained with the parents and children until DCS transportation arrived, or another party. We have also utilized our other CA staff to help and transport our family’s home.

We understand we are not always able to fix the problem, but we want to maintain the safety of our parents and children. Therefore, we ask our staff to wait and help transport as some of our families do not have the means to get home. Unfortunately, for our parents who reside in counties we do not service we are not able to help transport or move visits closer to them. Therefore, with permission from DCS we ask to provide virtual visits to the parents. It is not required for a parent to accept the virtual visit, therefore if they decline, we still make up the missed time due to transportation. However, our agency tries to provide them with some time with their children instead of waiting until their next visit.

Our capacity has fluctuated over time. A lot of changes have to do with the economy, job wages, people wanting to work, people’s health and their ability to work, and people wanting a healthy work life balance. There are many more determined factors, but these are a few we have experienced in our agency. Our agency’s challenge is to support our staff through all their determination factors, while still ensuring our capacity.

All our staff use their personal vehicles to transport children. This is a lot of wear and tear on their car. Therefore, for long trips we offer gas compensation. We reimburse our staff for their oil changes. We provide our staff with extra compensation for helping cover peers’ visits. We offer a bonus to staff for referring someone to the agency. We had staff who experienced financial hardship, and the Executive Manager was able to provide financial resources for them to supplement. These monetary things we do for our staff may seem small but are consistent in showing them we are a support and appreciative of them. It also allows our staff to have reliable transportation to complete their visits. We also try to assign cases to our staff based on their area. If we have a CA in Mesa that can support a Mesa family, we will assign the Mesa staff and not the Avondale staff. This helps eliminate staff being late due to traffic, their means of transportation having additional wear and tears, and all parties can end their day at a reasonable time. This also opens their capacity to take another case because they are not spending more time traveling. Our agency found longer travel cases, declines our capacity to service families.

We understand we are working with families that are not always showing up as their best self. Therefore, mental health and work life balance can be hard on staff. Therefore, we hold an open-door policy for staff to communicate with Supervisors and Program Manager. Our CA has case staffing to discuss cases and personal matters. All staff have direct numbers to call, text and send teams messages, if they need support. Our agency provides outings for staff to come together and relax. Having a positive work environment allows us to maintain staff and keep our capacity. We found majority of the staff who have a rapport with Supervisors and Program Manager do not abruptly quit and communicate issues and concerns more frequently than other staff. When talking with staff that abruptly quit, we found their reason was fixable had they communicated their case concern or personal matter. Our agency understands that turnover impacts on our capacity. Therefore, our agency will continue to provide mental and personal support services to our staff. We will continue to provide staff with a healthy work environment and opportunities outside of work to build supportive relationships. Once awarded the new contract, our goal is to provide staff with company vehicles and hire transporters. This will eliminate staff long journeys for our staff, which can increase their capacity. It also is an incentive for new staff to know they do not have use their vehicle, when longer travel is required.

Question 4: Describe your agency's experience in partnering with Child Welfare entities and/or other related fields, including examples that required collaboration and coordination.

Since 2017 we have been working in partnership with ADCS providing parenting time to families. Our partnership and collaboration experience have consisted of us providing parenting time services to families. Our agency safely transports children to and from parenting time. Our agency collaborates with ADCS and the courts to ensure they have all necessary documentation regarding the family’s interaction. Our agency collaborates directly with the Referral Unit to ensure referrals are requested and received. Our agency collaborates and coordinate case progression and lacks thereof to ADCS Specialist and Supervisors. We coordinate transportation with the ADCS Specialist, to ensure parent/caregiver transportation is arranged prior to parenting time. Our agency also coordinates with ADCS staff in scheduling parenting time in DCS offices. We have collaborated in ensuring the fidelity of the program by executing the contract within the scope of work and being compliant in delivering the service and documentation needed for ADCS.

We have collaborated with Arizona for Children. Our agency is working directly with them using their visitation facilities. By having this relationship with Arizona for Children, it allows our families to have parenting time in a safe and secure place. We collaborate with Arizona for Children in scheduling parenting time and ensuring the safety of the families.

We have partnered with individual families to provide supervised visitation services for the family Court. We collaborate and work in partnerships to provide supervised visits to the family. We coordinate visits and provide documentation based on our observation of the family’s interaction during parenting time. We have worked in collaboration with the Maricopa County Human Services Department Community Service Division (CSD). Often families face hardships, and we have collaborated with the families and the CSD to help families receive emergency financial support for rent, mortgages, and utilities (if eligible). We have built a relationship with different community action program offices throughout the valley and worked with their staff and our families to ensure a seamless process. Our agency understands the stress of not having the financial means and the additional stress it may cause. Therefore, by our agency having a point of contact and a relationship with the agency we can get questions answered more quickly, connect them with direct support, status updates, and help relieve some of the burdensomeness families face when trying to get support.

We have partnered with the local Food Bank to gather food to fight hunger by having a food drive. This collaboration allowed us to help our community and support the awareness of hunger in our community. We collaborate with them on obtaining the necessary items through donation and providing it to local families in need.

We have partnered with local community agencies to coordinate resources, as every family has different needs and by collaborating with other agencies within the community it allows us to offer additional support to the families we service. Our experience in collaborating and coordinating services has given our families an additional advantage in meeting their needs. Each collaboration we have within the community allows us to provide additional support and resources to our families. We can combine the different skillsets and resources with our families to ensure a seamless transition when other resources are needed. We understand that collaborating and coordinating with other agencies allows our families to have better results in meeting their needs. We only know what we know, and by working together we can create a think tank of resources and opportunities.

Within the last year, we have been trying to build a rapport with the transportation contract providers. We have provided our staff with their direct contact number and started engaging in communication with dispatch about transportation. Our intention is to continue to work with them as it relates to our families being transported. We have noticed several instances of our families being transported late, not picked up to or from a visit. As a result, we began reaching out to the companies about visits and equipping our families to reach out and advocate for themselves as well. This is a relationship we are still trying to captivate but is essential to the families who utilize their services.

End of Attachment 2-B