FCC 2021 Summit Executive Summary

FCC 2021 LEADERSHIP SUMMIT

Community Café Forum Executive Summary OCTOBER 2021

"Together Innovating Child & Family Well-Being" FLORIDA COALITION FOR CHILDREN

FCC 2021 Leadership Summit

INTRODUCTION On July 12-14, 2021, the Florida Coalition for Children (FCC) hosted its inaugural “Together Innovating Child Well-Being” Leadership Summit with 180 C-suite executives, guests, agency leadership and those with lived experience present. The event was hosted by the Florida Coalition for Children Foundation and the FCC Learning Community & Knowledge Center.

The intent of the Leadership Summit was to gather the Florida child welfare community of practice, state leadership, and policy makers to conversate, innovate, and co-create strategy and solutions that would result in the identification of a framework to guide the advancement of Florida’s 21st century child and family well-being system.

To accomplish this, the FCC hosted a series of five Community Café forums over 2.5 days. The Community Café convenings were predicated upon the World Café approach to “shaping the future through conversations that matter.” The process is based on the 4 Ds of Appreciative Inquiry: Dream Design Discover Deliver The notion is to move the Florida child welfare/child and family well-being community of practice from inquiry to action in an informed and inclusive manner. To identify the key strategic priorities for the FCC moving into 2022, the FCC surveyed its member organizations to select and prioritize focal areas from a list of 20 categories to determine where the FCC should form a common agenda to achieve collective impact over the coming months.

To that end, 31 respondent’s ratings resulted in the selection of the following three top priorities: Youth and Family Engagement Trauma Informed and Responsive care Diversity, equity, and inclusion In addition to the survey, the FCC Leadership determined Case Management and the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) to be strategic priorities that would be included in the community café forum discussions and presentations.

WRITTEN BY: DR. PATRICIA NELLIUS-GUTHRIE PUBLISHED BY:

To equip and prepare Summit Café participants to actively engage in discussion and to help foster, maximize, and gauge the conversation, the attendees received data, materials, and a pre-assessment on the Café topic of their choosing prior to the Summit.

The Café topics included five key strategic priorities identified through the survey that was conducted in February 2021. The priorities and respective Café Forums included: Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) Case Management Recruitment and Retention Racial Equity and Inclusion Trauma Informed and Responsive care Youth and Family Engagement Each of the respective Community Cafés was co-facilitated by a team of subject matter experts, and where applicable, the team included those with lived experience.

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FCC 2021 FORUM SUMMARIES Leadership Summit To ensure all attendees were aware and

informed of the work to occur in each of the respective Café forums, facilitator teams presented an overview of their subject matter during the plenary session of the Summit. At the conclusion of the Summit, each of the teams presented summaries of the trends, themes, and recommendations from their Café to the large group.

While the Café forums were customized around the specific subject matter using data, research, content, and the experience of those who have been entrenched in the work, each of the groups presented the following questions for dialogue and discussion.

Where are we as a state regarding the topic of the respective Café?

What is our collective vision of the future state regarding the topic?

What strategies, tactics and innovations do we need to employ to realize and achieve our vision?

At the conclusion of the Café sessions, the facilitators guided discussion to build consensus on the themes, trends, and preliminary recommendations of the group.

On Wednesday morning, the FCC hosted a large group presentation and facilitated community conversation on FFPSA to identify the post-implementation key priorities requiring strategy, planning, and execution.

The FCC intends to use the preliminary trends, themes, and recommendations resulting from the five Community Cafés to create a common agenda that will build a framework for its vision of collective impact. The findings will be reviewed with leadership for inclusion in the FCC 2022-27 Strategic Plan and will be memorialized by the FCC into measurable statewide lead and driven initiatives.

FCC 2021 Leadership Summit

This preliminary Executive Summary and findings will be disseminated to member agencies, Summit attendees, and other stakeholders to continue to build upon the work resulting from the Café Forums.

Outlined below are the preliminary findings for consideration. Summit Café forum presentation content can be found at 2021 Leadership Summit - Florida Coalition for Children (flchildren.org).

Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA): Lead by Teri Saunders, CEO, Heartland for Children with Schuyler Siefker, CEO, St. Augustine Youth Services Given the October 1, 2021 implementation of the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA), the FFPSA Community Café forum was presented at the Summit plenary session to ensure the child welfare community of practice at large was informed and aware of the work that has ensued to date. Attendees received an extensive overview of the status of the two-year planning process, decisions to date, and areas of needed focus and priority moving forward.

The topics covered in the presentation included: The current capacity and placement of children in: Out of home care (OOHC) Licensed residential family-based treatment facilities Maternity homes

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FCC 2021 Leadership Summit

Definition of “At-risk of sex trafficking” and placement capacity Age restrictions and waivers Qualified Residential Treatment Program (QRTP) capacity projections, capacity building, and status Qualified evaluator capacity, demographics/profile of population, data, and statistics Suitability Assessment barriers Medical necessity for Specialized Therapeutic Group Homes (STGH) Comparative analysis of STGH and QRTP Enhanced foster home development The national landscape The Florida FFPSA State Prevention Plan status Prevention activities Candidacy definition FFT Funding allocations Strategies to cover increased costs FFPSA Tomorrow: Implementation phase areas of priority, strategy, and attention Key themes and participant discussion centered around efforts employed to date, preparedness, and the leadership role the FCC will be taking to guide, support, and implement policy and practice.

Case Management: Lead by John Cooper, President and CEO, Kids Central and FCC Board Chair, and Dr. Darren Brooks, FSU College of Business Asst. Dept. Chair and Executive Director, Center for Human Resource Management Case management recruitment, retention, capacity, and funding are priorities that were predetermined by FCC Leadership and as an FCC Legislative Priority for 2022.

The introductory case management overview presented at the plenary session entailed a national and historical review of select workforce retention data and trends.

Presenters focused on the known and unknown factors pertaining to workforce stability challenges and issues, concluding the unknown factors require further analysis to adequately understand, address, and solve.

What is known: Workforce recruitment and retention issues are a national concern.

There are high attrition rates with average tenure less than two years – most occurring within first 3 years.

High turnover impacts the quality-ofservice delivery and outcomes, affects organizational morale, and adversely impacts agency budgets.

Organizations that fail to implement an array of solutions, fails to consider personal and organizational factors, and lacks an environment that values and supports staff will not successfully improve stability.

Factors to be further explored:

"Shifting systems begins with shifting the mindsets and behaviors of the people working within the system."

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Existing research provides limited insights into demographics, characteristics, beliefs, and attitudes of people working in child welfare.

Why case managers choose to stay in the field and remain in the role: not why they leave, but why they stay.

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FCC 2021 The profiles and characteristics of those who remain in the industry.

Leadership Summit

The presenters then shared findings and hypotheses on current research and surveys conducted in their local system of care. A statewide survey was conducted in March, 2021 of over 240 Child Protective Services Case Managers with a minimum of three years’ experience in the field.

Findings showed:

Overwhelmingly, tenured case managers reported what keeps them in the job is: Passion and a calling to help children and families Supervisory and organizational support Job flexibility Ability to make or create change in a community and within a family Relationships with their coworkers Dedication to the work and families

FCC 2021 Leadership Summit

Approximately 15% of Florida’s 2,000 CPS case managers have three or more years of experience.

Almost 80% of case managers did not intend to work in child welfare before or during college.

More than 80% of the best case managers did not plan on working in child welfare at all.

Almost 70% of the best case managers had prior professional work experience.

Tenured case managers are more likely to remain in the job than newer staff.

Case managers reported enjoying working with families, peers, supervisors, and their organizations, but not being satisfied with their salary, workload, or stress of the job.

Tenured case managers are more likely to remain on the job in the future and believe their peers leave due to high caseloads, poor compensation, and emotional exhaustion.

Tenured case managers identified that high performing case managers have the following characteristics: Ability to handle stress Passion for helping others Good organizational skills A strong work ethic Personal strength and resilience

To improve recruitment and retention, experienced staff recommended: Increasing pay and benefits Lowering caseloads and reducing paperwork Improving salary progression Improving coordination Providing strong leadership and supervision Enhancing training and support Increasing support staff well-being Using a hybrid “wicked problems”* approach to solve complex issues (design theorists Horst Rittel and Melvin M. Webber used the term “wicked problem” to refer to problems that are difficult to define and inherently unsolvable), the facilitators incorporated the following elements into their analysis: Design Thinking Methodology Focus groups for recruitment, hiring, and retention

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FCC 2021 Leadership Summit

Racial Equity and Inclusion (REI): Lead by Esther Jacobo, Director, Citrus Family Care Network and Mike Bryant, COO, Embrace Families

The establishment of permanent living arrangements for children who cannot be reunited with their families or when reunification would not be in the best interest of the child.

The Racial Equity and Inclusion (REI) plenary presentation opened with an overview of racial disparities that exist in communities across the state of Florida.

The direction for the work to be done to increase REI will focus on identifying solution-oriented approaches and options that will improve outcomes for children, including children of color.

The transition to self-sufficiency for older children who continue to be in foster care as adolescents.

The facilitators outlined the Florida Department of Children & Families’ (DCF) Goals for Child Welfare to serve as the foundation to build upon the work in the afternoon, which entails ensuring REI exists at all levels, from policy to practice.

They include: The prevention of separation of children from their families.

The protection of children alleged to be abused, neglected, or abandoned, including provision of emergency and long-term alternate living arrangements.

The reunification of families who have had children placed with relatives or in foster homes or institutions.

The preparation of young adults that exit foster care at age 18 to make the transition to self-sufficiency as adults.

Focus then shifted to the role, responsibility, and intent of Community Based Care to carry out the goals of DCF within the local community and to increase ownership and outcomes through: Accountability Resource Development System Performance Community Engagement The foundation established that building upon the work in the afternoon Community Café entails: Understanding that every child, youth, and family deserves effective supports and services to meet their unique needs.

Understanding that agencies are tasked with providing child welfare services in our local communities for our most vulnerable children, and that it is our duty to provide those services.

Defining Racial Equity to ensure racial identity no longer predicts how someone will fare in the child welfare system related to assessment, service quality, or opportunities.

Having a respectful, solutions-oriented discussion around: The youth voice perspective in the importance of REI Data collection and analysis

*Wicked Problems Model

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Current initiatives from Florida Community Based Care (CBC) organizations

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FCC 2021Developing solutions to address REI issues Leadership Creating structures and Summit partnerships that provide

accountability and sustainability of REI work

Trauma Informed Care (TIC): Lead by Dr. Valerie Holmes, Vice President of Operations, Brevard Family Partnership, Dr. Demara Bennett, Florida Psychological Specialists, LLC and Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology, Florida Institute of Technology, and Joy Zedler, Executive Director and Founder, The Pearl Project The trauma informed and responsive care presentation focused on various aspects of shifting to and operating in a Trauma Informed Care environment. This included: An overview of managing the change in practice to effectively shift an agency culture to become a trauma responsive community of practice A trauma expert’s insight in working with organizations to assess and address the impact of burnout and secondary traumatic stress in the child welfare industry The perspective of a caregiver with lived experience in responding to the needs of children with complex trauma to ensure caregivers are equipped, educated, and provided tools to mitigate the adverse impact of secondary trauma and burnout they may experience as a caregiver The TIC/Trauma Responsive Care (TRC) approach presented was guided by four assumptions: Acknowledging trauma and how it can affect people and groups Recognizing the signs of trauma Having a system that can respond to trauma Resisting re-traumatization The foundation for being a TIC community/agency was predicated upon a

trauma-informed approach to care that adheres to six key principles rather than a prescribed set of practices or procedures.

FCC 2021 Leadership Summit

Understanding these principles may be generalizable across multiple types of settings, despite the different terminology used, and application may be setting or sector specific.

The six key principles included: Safety Trustworthiness and transparency Peer support Collaboration and mutuality Empowerment, voice, and choice Cultural, historical, and gender issues A cursory review of burnout, secondary traumatic stress and research pertaining to child welfare addressed: Performance and attrition Disruption to services Negative effects on the children and families we serve Risk factors Prevention

"A secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but building on the new."

Socrates The experience of a Lead Agency implementing TIC strategies at the front line, management, and leadership levels of the organization was outlined to include the following key elements: Leadership: Dedication, Assessment, Planning, Feedback, and Implementation

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FCC 2021 Leadership Summit

Management: Training, Assessment, Planning, and Implementation Front-Line Child Welfare Professionals: Training and Implementation Training and meetings at all levels All-staff meetings Small-group breakout sessions as needed Challenges to staff implementation Organizational changes (e.g., “Self-Care Days,” Self-Care Language and Modeling, etc.)

The TIC presentation concluded with a focus on supporting caregivers and foster families through a trauma informed lens.

The discussion included the need for trauma informed trainings that include the impact of trauma on the brain, body, beliefs, biology, and behavior as well as the need for trauma informed support using peer led support groups.

The need to educate caregivers to understand behavior as an expression of need, the attachment cycles and styles, and the role of mindfulness in fostering resilience were three proposed strategies for consideration in supporting and sustaining placement and fostering a healing environment.

"Conversate, innovate and co-create strategy and solutions that would result in the identification of a framework to guide the advancement of Florida's 21st century child and family well-being system."

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Youth and Family Engagement (YFE): Lead by Dr. Elizabeth Wynter, Executive Director, Selfless Love Foundation and FCC Foundation Chair, Corey Best, Founder, Mining for Gold, John Watson, Youth Engagement Intern, One Voice Impaact, Diamond Whitley, Communications Intern, One Voice Impaact, and Shantinese Jackson, Wraparound Supervisor, Brevard Family Partnership The YFE session opened by outlining the role of youth and family engagement in achieving positive outcomes for children and families.

Engaging youth and families to make sure they are actively consulted and heard in their case plans and court hearings improves safety, permanency, and well-being outcomes for those most affected by child welfare decisions.

When dedicated partners go the extra mile to help youth and families build lasting relationships along the way, they are creating vital connections to support future well-being and success.

Alia’s “Dear Leaders” letter drafted by families with lived experience in partnership with Alia was shared to convey the perspectives and experiences of those who have experienced system involvement. It illustrates parent-proposed alternatives to build effective relationships.

The importance of collaboration, inclusion, authentic engagement, and compassionate accountability were key themes throughout the discussion. This included understanding that the need to share power requires creating ways to actively amplify the voices of and codesign with people who have lived experience—without tokenizing them. It’s about ensuring families explicitly influence decision-making in the organizations and systems designed to serve and support them.

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three focus areas included: FCCThe 2021 Leadership Building transparent/authentic Summitrelationships with youth and families Making decisions based on what youth and families tell us they need Sharing decision-making power with youth and families To begin the process of sustainable change, system professionals need to recognize the power that the child welfare system has over youth and families. While anyone can play a role in shifting the system of care toward keeping children safe by keeping families safely together, this directive is aimed toward child welfare leaders and leadership teams.

The potential for meaningful and lasting system change is predicated upon the willingness to consider whether:

Youth and families engaged in the child welfare system would be better off without our “services”

FCC 2021 Leadership Summit

System professionals have tried collaborating with youth and families in authentic ways, but it just didn’t work System professionals believe the best solutions lie with those closest to the challenge System professionals can see the innate protective factors of youth and families System professionals understand they could not and should not make changes alone System professionals are ready to face hard truths about themselves, their agency, and community Systems yearn to see an antioppressive, anti-racist reality in child welfare, with the ability to say sorry Shifting systems begins with shifting the mindsets and behaviors of the people working within the system. Delving into the following five principles can guide the shift toward authentic engagement, building relationships, and co-designing with youth and families.

Context Compassion Change Consistency Collaboration To ensure families explicitly influence decision-making in child welfare organizations, leaders can begin by: Building transparent/authentic relationships with youth and families Making decisions based on what youth and families tell us they need

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FCC 2021 Leadership Summit

Sharing decision-making power with youth and families Shared progress is built upon a foundation of trust. Collaborative leaders strive to build relationships of mutuality and solidarity with their teams, families, and those impacted by the system to move the work forward. As “Dear Leaders” asks, “Are you actively making a commitment to share power with people with lived experience?”

To begin the work of reform, we need to look within and ask some difficult questions to investigate and understand the power that systems have over youth and families.

Who am I/we, and who does our work eventually serve?

Who has decision-making power in this system?

What power do I/we have?

What forms of power are helpful to me and others?

What forms of power are harmful to me and others?

What relationship does my race have to the power I hold?

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F I N D I N G S

FFPSA Community Café Presenter Teri Saunders enumerated the issues and recommendations identified in the FFPSA strategy session.

1) We must be proactive. Currently, we only change when something bad happens to prompt or force that change. The emerging crisis is that 900 kids may have placements in jeopardy if disrupted after October 1, 2021.

2) We must engage our caregivers and create foster-parent collaborative groups that are willing to take hard-to-place children impacted by FFPSA changes. We must challenge ourselves to have more lived experiences – we must have more people with “lived experience” at the table; their voices must be integrated into the decision-making. And we need our families to tell us what would have helped – what would have helped keep a placement for them in the past?

3) We must bring in Child Protective Investigators (CPIs), mental health professionals, the Agency for Persons with Disabilities (APD), and the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) at the beginning of the conversation. For kids coming into care who don’t need care, it’s their families that need resources; we must prevent crossover into systems that are inappropriate for their needs.

4) Evidence-based programs can help; if we integrate these services, we may see a decrease in the number of youth coming into care who don’t really need the services of child welfare.

5) There are no programs or services in FFPSA that address APD, and we need to work on that; for example, many parents of APD children give up and believe their children are better off in foster care because they don’t have the resources they actually need.

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Providers are not ready for FFPSA FCC6)2021 changes; Leadershipcentralized trainings are not practical, and there aren’t any "train the Summit trainers" offered. We need to push up the

costs to Lead Agencies so we can push off Family Focused Treatment Association (FFTA) dollars. We need to become engaged in info-sharing, particularly regarding fidelity.

7) Regarding the suitability assessment, we must expand the definition of QRTP level of care and differentiate between another level that meets the federal requirements without adding on medical requirements.

8) Eighty children will no longer qualify Oct. 1, 2021, so what do we do with them?

FFTA money and eligibility are still not completely defined; providers want to prepare themselves for the transition.

Reimbursement is significantly below what is paid for minors – going with state standards, it will be significantly lower. We must know how the matrix caps out and how to address it.

9) There is additional Quality Parenting Initiative (QPI) work that comes with FFPSA changes (for example, comfort calls must be made for all moves). It’s hard to hire staff when we’re laying additional duties on them. Also, the requirements for Florida Senate Bill 80 will add even more work effective Oct. 1, 2021.

Case Management Community Café 1) The discussion identified a need to define the “wicked problem.” Case management turnover exceeds 40 percent and the average retention is two years; is it possible to decrease turnover by 10-15 percent annually.

FCC 2021 Leadership Summit

2) The group brainstormed a list of characteristics of a good case manager and came up with a composite of perfection that doesn’t exist. Still, there were many crossover areas between the group’s work and characteristics identified by previous national surveys (University of North Carolina and the Maine Institute).

Some shared positive attribute language included engaged, grounded, flexible, critical thinker, intrinsic thinker, good timemanager, compassionate, and positive.

3) The group reviewed national salary data and found that the national average salary for a case manager is $49,000 per year vs.

Florida’s $38,000 per year. The average case worker’s salary in Texas, which has a similar model, is $51,000 per year. In Florida, there is a significant salary gap between case managers and other service providers, such as police officers and teachers.

4) The group stated a vital need to increase salaries and offer a salary progression model.

5) Regarding recruitment, selection, and retention, the group recommended increasing salary, refining tools, testing and screening assessments, reducing caseloads, and focusing on supervisor culture.

"Tenured case managers identified that top case managers have the following characteristics: ability to handle stress; passion for helping others; good organizational skills; a strong work ethic; and personal strength and resilience."

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FCC 2021 Leadership Summit

Racial Equity and Inclusion Community Café

12) Have youth be part of the procurement process for youth related services.

We must: 1) Recognize that we are not even breaking ground; we’re merely surveying the land.

13) Provide training for staff interacting with youth on how to have difficult/ sensitive conversations, including use of non-violent language to improve communication.

2) Ask how we move toward embodying compassionate accountability.

14) Have youth actively participate in the formation of the Youth Councils.

3) Identify the problem; when we identify the problem, we are halfway there.

4) Define what racial equality and inclusion means to us and then we can train staff to connect.

5) Focus on implicit bias training, while validating every race and ethnicity.

6) Make sure that all systems (mental health, child welfare, etc.) are part of the solution.

7) Focus on leadership, and have the right people in the organization lead, guide, and embrace the change that needs to occur while being purposeful in ensuring diversity in staff and leadership.

8) Be aspirational and lean into challenges.

9) Be honest about the situation.

10) Take purposeful steps to build trust with youth.

Take them seriously.

Have them be messengers to other youth in care that your organization can be trusted and will be respectful of them and their views.

11) Ensure Youth Councils have a voice in advocacy work in Tallahassee and Washington, D.C.

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15) Consider that youth residing in group homes may be a good starting point for forming a Youth Council.

16) Form Youth Councils that are similar to Family Advisory Councils, which provide a consistent voice that is representative of the community.

17) Have Youth Councils be standing committees of the board of directors.

18) Improve data collection across the state and ensure consistency to track changes over time.

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Ensure equitable access to resources FCC19) 2021 and services by: Leadership SummitCreating heat maps utilizing data from

8) Share Best Practices, come together for thought leadership-knowledge exchange, and build a statewide network.

different sources (i.e., education, law enforcement, Medicaid eligibility, removals) to determine areas of greatest need and use them as a road map to form community partnerships and create community buy-in.

9) Build a TIC/TRC Clearinghouse.

Establishing coordinated discussions with leadership and direct care staff, leadership, and youth through forums to identify areas of needs and gaps in accessing resources.

11) Approach accrediting bodies such as the Council on Accreditation (COA) to formally credential TIC networks.

Making purposeful efforts to identify, connect with, and share information (possibly including providing training to CPIs, case managers, and therapists) about services available to youth and families.

Trauma Informed Community Café We need to: 1) Expand knowledge and training to improve quality of care.

2) Introduce more Trust Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) training. The goal of TBRI is to give voice to children.

FCC 2021 Leadership Summit

10) Assess the landscape by conducting an environmental scan to assess where each community of practice is on the continuum.

12) Support policy changes that are trauma informed and trauma responsive.

13) Reduce caseloads, freeing up additional time for case managers to support foster parents.

14) Seek to secure funding to hire more case managers.

15) Provide early intervention and engagement when a foster parent is struggling.

16) Empower foster parents and bring them together at regular intervals.

17) Establish timeframes on processes and follow up when foster parents request support.

18) Execute self-care plans for caregivers.

3) Define a common language.

4) Develop Florida’s definition for TIC. 5) Increase education and awareness of Trauma Informed and Responsive Care.

6) Develop standardized curriculum (i.e., a statewide model).

7) Develop a TRC “Blueprint.”

'We need to share Best Practices, come together for thought leadershipknowledge exchange, build a statewide network, and develop Florida’s definition for Trauma Informed and Responsive Care."

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FCC 2021 Leadership Summit

Youth and Family Engagement Community Café 1) Always value relationships over services: “Nothing about me without me.”

2) Authenticity can’t be legislated.

3) Accountability is not about punishment; it’s about cultivating a capacity for joy with no fear of admitting challenges/mistakes.

4) Focus on the individualized needs (culture) rather than checking a box.

5) Nurture and make time for the youth and family, driven by humanity, not compliance. It is compassionate accountability when the relationship consists of genuine care and concern for the feelings and needs of those we serve.

6) Incorporate qualitative surveys to measure the effectiveness of youth and family engagement.

7) Youth and family engagement is a skill.

We need to train on it, appreciate it, and recognize it.

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FCCS 2021 UMMARY RESULTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Leadership Summit The goal of the 2021 FCC Leadership Youth, young adults, and parents with lived Summit was to create collective impact by launching a series of Community Cafés to identify 2022 priorities and proposed strategies and solutions in an inclusive process. To ensure that the statewide community of practice has ample opportunity to contribute to this effort, the FCC will host a series of Virtual Summit Cafés in the fourth quarter of 2021.

The results of the virtual Cafés will be rolled into a final executive summary and will be used to guide and inform initiatives associated with 2022 FCC goals and priorities with the intent of innovating and co-creating a 21st century child and family well-being system in the state of Florida.

experience will be embedded in the processes employed to carry out the recommendations resulting from the FCC Leadership Summit Community Cafés.

Additionally, One Voice Impact (OVI), in partnership with the Selfless Love Foundation, will establish a plan/blueprint to assess how best to carry out the recommendations resulting from the Youth and Family Engagement Café.

FCC 2021 Leadership Summit

Concurrent to the delivery of the Virtual Community Cafés, the Florida Thriving Families Initiative will have the opportunity to examine and consider if and where there may be synergy and an opportunity to align shared priorities to coalesce this work moving forward.

The FCC Strategy and Innovations Roundtable (SIRT) is in the process of formulating 2022 strategic goals and priorities. Racial Equity and Inclusion has been adopted as one of those priorities.

The REI Leadership Summit Café facilitators have agreed to lead the SIRT REI Subcommittee initiative currently underway. The Initiative is in the formative phase of development and will consist of statewide cross-sector representatives who will work across jurisdictions to mobilize and execute a plan of action.

The FCC is currently in the process of forming a statewide parent (those with lived experience) leadership council which will unite to empower and elevate the role of parents as respected, valued, and equal partners within the statewide system of care.

The FCC will facilitate the establishment of an FFPSA Implementation Team who will lead, guide, monitor, track, and report trends throughout implementation in Florida.

The Case Management Café recommendations are currently being utilized, focusing on workforce stability.

The work to improve the professional

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FCC 2021 Leadership Summit

experience of those who choose child welfare case management as a profession was initiated beginning with the formation of the 2022 Legislative Agenda and a corresponding funding request. The ongoing effort to enhance, improve, and build a case management recruitment, retention, and wellness strategy - along with a salary progression and professional development model - will be rolled out under the leadership of the FCC Board of Directors and Legislative Action committee.

The FCC will facilitate the establishment of a Trauma Responsive Care Council comprised of subject matter experts and those with lived experience to incubate and co-create a process to implement the recommendations resulting from the TIC Café.

Community Cafés at the 2022 FCC Conference where Community Café leaders will provide reports on the status, findings, and results of each 2021 Café, ensuring that sustainable, meaningful, and lasting change will occur.

Respectfully Submitted, Dr. Patricia Nellius- Guthrie EVP, Innovation and Knowledge Management Florida Coalition for Children

In conclusion, the ongoing work resulting from all of the 2021 FCC Leadership Summit Community Café strategy sessions will contain measurable goals and objectives to be monitored and reported over the coming year.

To that end, planning has already begun to incorporate a series of workshops and

To submit comments, please contact the Florida Coalition for Children at communications@flchildren.org.

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