PUR 7778 DCF SS 2324 062.pdf

PUR 7778 (Revised 07/2022) Incorporated by Reference: Rule 60A-1.045, F.A.C.

NOTICE OF INTENDED DECISION

TO ENTER INTO A SINGLE SOURCE CONTRACT

(PUR 7778)

This Notice of Intended Decision to Enter into a Single Source Contract is posted in accordance with Rule 60A-1.045, Florida Administrative Code, and section 120.57(3), Florida Statutes.

Commodity or Contractual Service (commodity or United Nation Standard Products and Services Code (UNSPSC), manufacturer, model, and description, as appropriate):

86132102 – Training planning and development consultancy service 86132200 – Educational support services 86101810 – Personnel skill training

Requestor (division, bureau, office, individual, as appropriate):

Office of Child and Family Well-Being

Performance and/or Design Requirements (intended use, function or application, compatibility, requirements; reference to policy, rule, statute or other act of the Legislature, as appropriate):

The Vendor will be required to provide the Department’s complete simulation, critical thinking, and case management training, to continue to provide quality training to Children Protection Investigators (CPI) and Children Protection Investigator Supervisors (CPIS). The Vendor must utilize the Theory of Administrative Tethering and the "Good Call" Tool in this specialized training, to meet the quality expectations of the Department. The Vendor will be required to build the Department custom simulations.

Intended Single Source:

REAL Academy

AGENCY: Florida Department of Children and Families

TITLE: Simulation Training for Child Welfare Short description of the commodity or service desired: The Department intends to continue to provide innovative, and data proven training techniques for Simulation training in Child Welfare.

The Vendor will be required to continue to work with the Department to provide custom simulations. This pre-service training will prepare trainees for the reality of the work by providing real life experiences and an environment in which it is safe to fail.

CONTACT

Name: Alicia Reifinger Address: N/A Telephone: N/A Email: Alicia.Reifinger@myflfamilies.com, all communication shall be in writing

Internal tracking number, if any: DCF SS 2324 062 DMS Single Source number, if applicable:

Date posted: 10/24/2023 Time posted: 1:00 p.m.

mailto:Alicia.Reifinger@myflfamilies.com

Price:

The total amount of funding for this project is $2,953,165 which is comprised of three projects. The first project totaling $917,885 in funds from the Office of Child and Family Well-Being is for instructional design. The second project is for $999,999 in funds from the Office of Child and Family Well-Being will be to provide deliverables to Florida Institute for Child Welfare (FICW), a division of Florida State University for administrative tethering video training, progress reports, fidelity monitoring tool, and training master trainers for simulation of which will be 100% reimbursed back to DCF upon completion of deliverables. For Fiscal year 2, the third project totaling $1,035,281 is comprised in funds from the Office of Child and Family Well-Being of which FICW will also completely reimburse upon completion of deliverables.

Justification for Single Source Purchase (what is necessary and unique about the commodity, contractual service, or source; steps taken to confirm unavailability of competition, as appropriate):

The Department has a current Purchase Order with REAL Academy, this is the only Vendor that can continue ongoing work. Additionally, REAL Academy is the only organization offering child welfare simulation (custom or out-of-the-box products), technical assistance to implement simulation, practice-driven training into existing training curriculum, and a Learning Management System assisting to bridge practice gaps and provide CEUs. The Department is currently under contract with the Real Academy and this single source will allow a continuation of the services currently provided that only they can provide. While other vendors create simulations, only REAL Academy offers a train-the-trainer model enabling participants to participate in the creation of simulations for ongoing sustainability. Only REAL Academy has a suite of trade-secret-protected decision-making tools (Behavior Branch™, Good Call Tool™, and Nexus™) to improve critical thinking/reasoning in child welfare practice, all of which are created, researched, validated, and owned by REAL Academy. Furthermore, only REAL Academy has access to certain copyrighted materials based on the research summarized in Toward the Theory of Administrative Tethering: Re-thinking Child Welfare Training amid Rationally Bounded Administrative Decision-Making and Collaborative Governance Processes: Marino, Kevin: 9781793642943: Amazon.com: Books) to strengthen the attachment of frontline professionals to policy, law, and practice.

Administrative Tethering uses evaluation measures to examine each participant’s strengths and Bounded Rationality to support maximum sustainability of the project, by providing a diagnostic tool to frame adjustments required for the trainer/management approach to retain, maintain, adapt, and improve professional skills in a manner not found with any other vendor.

In September of 2020, the Florida Institute for Child Welfare (FICW) conducted a level three evaluation of our current Pre-service curriculum yielding the following policy recommendations:

“Continue emphasizing hands-on learning strategies in pre-service training, such as training mock-cases, and trials, role plays, and FSFN practice;”

“Develop strategies across regions to provide, realistic opportunities for interacting with families with diverse scenarios during training;” and most notably https://www.amazon.com/Toward-Theory-Administrative-Tethering-Decision-Making/dp/179364294X https://www.amazon.com/Toward-Theory-Administrative-Tethering-Decision-Making/dp/179364294X https://www.amazon.com/Toward-Theory-Administrative-Tethering-Decision-Making/dp/179364294X

“Participants stressed the need to learn under less scripted conditions...”

Out-of-the-box or one-time customized simulations may meet the first two recommendations for a short period of time but are not sustainable in our constantly changing system of care without the implementation support provided only by REAL Academy. Further, the performance of trainees and validation of transfer of knowledge is not measurable without the evaluation measures of Administrative Tethering™ provided only by REAL Academy, and the training will not integrate into ongoing practice without the use of REAL Academy’s proprietary decision-making tools. Only a vendor with the ability to tailor and embed these hands-on learning experiences into Florida’s complex system of care will be able to meet the need of the Pre-service redesign.

As listed in the Performance and Design Requirements, the Department requires a vendor capable of using the Theory of Administrative Tethering and its accompanying measurement tool. This theory or a comparable one with a validated tool is essential to measure the agency and worker’s strengths and areas of growth for attachments to the training and service. Given the complex system in Florida, the consistency provided by curriculum alone will not suffice. Administrative Tethering is a validated organizational assessment of 12 core collaborative factors and provides a mitigating strategy for strengthening collaborative efforts constructed on 4 essential components.

This theory and tool are in line with a driving force of this redesign, which is to build a strong, sturdy bridge between the training room and the field by assessing, monitoring, and strengthening the attachments of the collaborative partners (CPI and CM trainees, their trainers, their supervisors, and all field coaches) with a validated assessment to ensure adequate collaboration, support, and fidelity to the training, practice, and policy.

The vendor must have a forensically designed decision-making tool, not a clinical tool, to align with a second driving force of our pre-service redesign, which is to move away from a deficits-based curriculum and toward a strengths-based model to further align with larger Departmental goals. More detailed tool requirements are as follows. The Department requires a vendor with access to:

1. A forensically designed tool to focus critical thinking toward distilling multitudes of case information to profile maltreatment correctly.

2. A forensically designed tool to profile information in a contextual method to bind the critical thinking of the CPI and the Case Manager to follow and extinguish all leads in a case.

3. A forensically designed tool to bind the CPI and the CM in the decision-making process and bind it to the legal definition of evidence and measure the weight according to the preponderance and clear and cogent standard of the law.

The Department requires a vendor with the capacity for five-seven individuals to work alongside our instructional designers for 40 plus hours per week to create approximately ten custom simulations in alignment with our Pre-service redesign. This capacity and availability must currently exist to work within the Department’s required timeline.

The vendor will need to have the capacity to support implementation of the newly redesigned Pre-service through statewide, in-person training and technical assistance beginning January 2023. This will require at least five to seven people working in Florida for weeks or months at a time to train over 200 trainers, 650 supervisors, and 250 field coaches.

For sustainability, the Department requires a vendor whose train the trainer approach includes training all trainers to create and modify simulations. The vendor must also be prepared to recruit and train actors and then train Department, Sheriff’s Office, and Community Based Care trainers to do the same.

The Department’s pre-service redesign will include training for CPIs and Case Managers and include additional instruction for their supervisors and field trainers. To this end, the vendor must have experience creating and training simulations for CPIs, Case Managers, and their respective supervisors.

Approved By:

Carolynn Wilhite, Project Manager Amy Hines, Program Director Mario Rubio, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Quality and Innovation Laura Mitchell, Budget Office Kimberly McMahon, Chief of Solicitations Thomas Valentine, Assistant General Counsel Sharron Washington, Assistant Secretary of Office of Quality and Innovation

Failure to file a protest within the time prescribed in section 120.57(3), Florida Statutes, or failure to file a bond or other security within the time allowed for filing a bond, shall constitute a waiver of proceedings under Chapter 120, Florida Statutes. Protests may be filed with the agency by:

Mail:

Agency Clerk Department of Children and Families 2415 North Monroe St., Ste. 100 Tallahassee, Florida 32303

Email:

Agency.Clerk@myflfamilies.com

Fax:

(850) 922-3947 mailto:Agency.Clerk@myflfamilies.com